IC-NRLF 


105    202 


INDUSTRIE 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


TWO  RELATED   INDUSTRIES 


FRANCIS  CONKLING  HUYCK 


'        TWO 

Eelateb 


OF 

PAPER-MAKING  AND  OF  PAPER-MAKERS'  FELTS 

AS   MANUFACTURED   AT    THE    KENWOOD    MILLS 

RENSSELAER,  NEW  YORK,  U.S.A. 

AND   ARNPRIOR 

ONTARIO,    CANADA 

THE    TWO    PLANTS    OF 


J^eto  !?orfe 


'PREPARED    $T 

OF     TERRT 

TO  MARK  THE  FIFTIETH  YEAR  SINCE  THE  FOUNDER 
FRANCIS  CONKLING  HUYCK,  ENTERED  THE  BUSINESS 
AND  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH  YEAR  SINCE  THE  PLANT 
AT  RENSSELAER,  NEW  YORK,  OPPOSITE  ALBANY 

WAS   BUILT 

1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1920 

BY 
F.  C.  HUYCK  &  SONS 


Compiled,  arranged  and  printed  by  direction  of 

Walton  Advertising  &  Printing  Company 

Boston,  Mass. 


TS 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 


Foreword ix 

Origin  and  Development  of  Paper    .    .    .    : I 

Introduction  of  the  Art  of  Paper-Making  into  Europe 3 

First  Paper-Mill  in  America 13 

Other  Early  American  Paper-Mills 13 

First  Massachusetts  Mill 14 

First  New  York  Mill       , 16 

Scarcity  of  Paper  during  the  Revolution 16 

Other  Early  Mills 17 

The  Era  of  Rags  and  the  Invention  and  Development  of  Paper-making 

Machines       18 

Experiments  on  New  Material  for  Paper 19 

Origin  of  the  Fourdrinier  Machine  . 20 

Invention  of  the  Cylinder  Machine      20 

Use  of  Cotton  and  Linen  Rags      .* 21 

Changes  marked  by  the  Civil  War 21 

Use  of  Wood  Pulp 22 

First  Pulp-Mill  in  Maine  and  a  Modern  News-print  Mill        22 

The  Beaters  and  Sizing 23 

The  Fourdrinier  Machine 24 

Cylinder  Machine        26 

Uses  of  Paper  Material  for  Other  Products 28 

Use  of  Felt  in  Paper-Making — Great  Strides  in  the  Industry  and   Some 

Interesting  Statistics 29 

Pioneer  Companies      30 

The  Beginning  of  the  Manufacture  of  Paper-makers'  Felts 30 

Some  Paper  Statistics 32 

Founding  the  Kenwood  Mills        35 

A  Typical  Straw-paper  Mill  of  the  Time 36 

F.  C.  Huyck  enters  Business 37 

The  Beginning  of  the  Kenwood  Plant 39 

Number  of  Paper-Mills 39 

Plant  at  Kenwood  burned  May  4,  1894,  and  Removal  to  Rensselaer        .  40 

Present  Officers 42 

A  Story  of  Wool  and  the  First  Kenwood  Processes 44 

Where  the  Wool  comes  from      46 

Flocks  of  Argentine 47 

Various  Processes 48 

Carding  the  Wool  for  Spinning 49 

vii 


CONTENTS 


Spaciousness,  Lightness,  and  Airiness  of  the  Kenwood  Carding-Rooms     .  51 

Ingenuity  of  Machine-Carding      51 

Dame  Goodman's  Surprise 52 

A  Glance  at  the  Past  of  Carding 52 

American  and  English  Efforts  to  Perfect  Carding 53 

How  the  Mule  Spins  the  Roving 53 

Ancient  Method  of  Spinning 55 

Up-to-Date  Spinning 55 

Human  Ingenuity  of  the  Mule      57 

Hargreaves  and  the  Spinning-Jenny 58 

Weaving,  Fulling,  and  Napping 59 

Antiquity  of  Weaving 60 

Burling  and  Joining 63 

Washing  and  Fulling  the  Felts 63 

Putting  on  the  Nap 67 

Drying 68 

The  Shipping-Room    .    .    .    . 69 

Engineering  Department 73 

Accounting  Department 73 

The  Southern  States  of  the  United  States  a  Source  of  Supply 75 

Authorities 


vni 


FOREWORD 


IT  may  safely  be  said  that  the  product  of  every  industry  is  dependent 
on  the  product  of  some  other  industry  either  as  a  raw  material  or 
as  a  necessary  supply  in  the  process  of  manufacture.     The  great 
industry   of   paper-making   has    always   been   dependent   on   the 
product  which  has  been  known  as  paper-makers'  felts. 

From  the  time  when  the  artisan  making  paper  by  hand  laid  a  square 
piece  of  woolen  cloth  over  the  sheet  of  paper  formed  on  his  frame,  and 
was  able  by  the  peculiar  properties  of  the  wool  fibre  to  lift  the  sheet  of 
paper  attached  to  the  cloth  and  transfer  it  to  the  pile  where  by 
hydraulic  pressure  the  water  was  removed,  to  the  present  where  the 
great  endless  felts  of  woolen  cloth  carry  the  rapidly  moving,  continu- 
ous sheet  of  paper  through  the  various  press-rolls  of  the  paper-machine 
at  tremendous  speed,  nothing  has  been  found  but  this  woolen  cloth — 
always  known  as  paper-makers'  felts — that  would  serve  this  essential 
purpose.  It  is  not  a  felt  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  because  felt, 
as  it  has  been  made  for  thousands  of  years,  consisted  of  the  wool 
fibres  pressed  and  felted  or  fulled  together  by  the  peculiar,  half-myste- 
rious tendency  of  the  fibres  to  interlock,  working  so  closely  together 
that  a  strong  fabric  was  formed. 

The  Scythians,  who  from  remotest  antiquity  roamed  about  the 
wastes  of  Northern  Asia,  as  did  their  successors,  the  Tartars,  used 
felt  for  clothing  and  tent-coverings;  and  to-day  in  parts  of  Asia  the 
same  felted  woolen  fabric  is  used  for  the  same  purpose. 

In  paper-makers'  felts,  however,  the  fibre  being  spun  into  yarn 
and  then  woven  produces  a  very  different  fabric,  which  received  its 
name  of  felt  from  the  heavy  felting  process  which  followed  the  weav- 
ing, and  produced  a  fabric  which  might  have  been  more  truly  called 
a  blanket;  but  as  the  name  of  felt  was  originally  given  to  it  and  has 
survived  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  it  will  doubtless  always  con- 

ix 


JOHN  MILES  HUYCK 


FRANCIS  CONKJJNG  HUYCJUr 
treasurer  13Q7tol9M 
f^es.  arufDrea*  since  19ft 


EDMUND  NILES 
°pr^u/^  since  1907.    j 


FOREWORD 


tinue  to  be  known  as  paper-makers'  felt,  forming  the  product  of  an 
important  industry,  though  one  little  known  to  those  who  are  not 
familiar  with  the  process  of  paper  manufacture. 

The  purpose,  then,  of  this  book  is  to  present  the  story  of  paper- 
makers'  felts  from  the  beginning  of  their  manufacture  in  America 
about  a  half-century  ago  until  the  present  time.  The  processes  in  the 
manufacture  of  Kenwood  Felts  will  be  described,  and  closely  woven 
with  their  story  will  be  an  account  of  the  development  of  paper  manu- 
facture in  America  and  of  the  necessary  development  of  felt-making 
to  keep  pace  with  the  increased  demand  for  felts  to  meet  the  rapidly 
changing  conditions  of  paper-manufacturers  both  in  quantity  and 
quality  of  production. 

America  is  the  largest  paper-manufacturing  country  in  the  world, 
and  here  since  1870  paper  production  has  been  constantly  increasing. 
This  increase  is  because  during  the  last  thirty  years  wood  pulp  has 
been  used  in  vast  quantities.  The  rapidity  of  this  growth  may  be 
seen  from  these  statistics:  In  1869  the  American  paper-mills  had  an 
output  valued  at  $48,000,000;  during  the  next  decade  the  increase 
amounted  to  nearly  $10,000,000;  in  1889  tne  output  was  valued  at 
$79,000,000;  in  1899,  at  $127,000,000;  in  1909,  at  $267,000,000;  while 
according  to  the  last  census  the  output  is  something  more  than 
$330,000,000 — New  York,  Maine,  Massachusetts,  and  Wisconsin 
leading  in  the  production  of  wood  pulp  and  paper.  It  is  estimated 
that  the  production  of  paper  for  the  year  1918  was  $600,000,000. 

This  advance  assumes  significance  when  it  is  remembered  that 
during  the  two  thousand  years  that  paper  has  been  manufactured, 
America  has  produced  it  only  since  1690 — that  is,  a  little  more  than 
two  centuries  and  a  quarter.  From  tiny  paper-mills  dotting  inland 
streams  the  industry  has  turned  to  great  rivers,  to  which  the  forests 
of  the  Northern  States  have  contributed  millions  of  tons  of  pulp  to 
meet  the  demands  of  the  modern  paper-mills.  The  strides  made  in  the 
paper  industry  are  well  illustrated  at  the  Kenwood  Plant  in  Albany. 
In  the  finishing-room,  among  others,  are  two  dryers.  One  is  a  small 
machine  that  the  plant  owned  in  its  early  days;  the  other  is  the  largest 
dryer  that  has  ever  been  made.  The  first  was  built  when  paper- 
machines  produced  in  a  minute  a  piece  of  paper  from  one  to  two 
hundred  feet  long  and  from  forty  to  one  hundred  and  twenty  inches 
wide;  the  second  was  designed  to  meet  the  needs  of  machines  with 
speeds  of  six  hundred  to  one  thousand  feet  a  minute,  producing  paper 
from  two  hundred  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  inches  wide. 

xi 


FOREWORD 


It  is  an  especially  interesting  fact  that  Mr.  Francis  Conkling  Huyck, 
the  founder  of  the  Kenwood  Plant  at  Albany,  New  York,  began  in  the 
way  hereafter  described  to  manufacture  felts  in  1870 — the  year  from 
which  may  be  reckoned  the  beginning  of  modern  paper-making  in 
America.  It  is  also  interesting  to  note  that  the  first  mill  on  the  little 
stream  that  flows  through  the  village  of  Rensselaerville,  twenty-five 
miles  from  the  present  location,  had  similar  surroundings  to  the  first 
paper-mill  in  America  that  was  established  by  William  Rittenhouse 
nearly  two  centuries  before  the  founding  of  the  Huyck  Mill. 

One  of  the  loveliest  spots  to-day  in  the  State  of  New  York  is  the  site 
of  the  mill  in  which  Mr.  Huyck  started  in  the  manufacture  of  felts, 
which,  far  back  among  the  rugged  foothills  of  the  Catskills,  bears  an 
indescribable  something  typifying  the  strength  of  purpose  not  alone  of 
Mr.  Huyck,  but  of  all  pioneers  who  have  laid  the  foundations  for  great 
industries. 

The  founders  of  the  village  of  Rensselaerville  believed  that  it  would 
become  a  city  because  of  the  value  of  its  water-power.  In  the  last  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  a  village  located  twenty-five  miles  from  Albany 
was  not  isolated  as  were  places  farther  west  in  the  State,  and  the 
value  of  the  small  water-power  quickly  brought  a  number  of  small 
industries  to  locate  along  the  stream  as  it  flowed  over  a  series  of  falls 
running  through  from  its  source  several  hundred  feet  above  the 
village  itself.  Directly  back  of  the  mill  that  became  a  felt-mill  the 
fall  was  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet.  The  other  falls  of  lesser 
height  were  utilized  on  the  stream  below,  of  which  only  the  grist-mill 
and  saw-mill  survive  to-day,  as  small  units  of  water-power  are  no 
longer  valuable  unless  most  advantageously  located  on  a  railroad;  but 
the  site  of  the  old  mill,  while  the  building  itself  is  gone  and  only  the 
stone  foundations  remain,  is  as  beautiful  to-day  as  it  was  when  these 
same  stone  walls  were  laid.  Thick  foliage  and  the  leaves  of  wild- 
grape  vines  that  have  clambered  over  the  trees  and  shrubs  almost 
completely  hide  the  foundations,  on  which  rests  one  end  of  a  foot- 
bridge which  now  spans  the  stream  below  the  foot  of  the  falls. 

Evidences  of  Mr.  Huyck's  regard  for  his  native  town  are  seen  on 
every  hand:  In  the  beautiful  garden  of  his  former  home;  in  the 
Public  Library— his  gift  to  the  village;  in  the  Town  Hall  that  was 
improved  by  him;  in  the  white  church,  the  tower  of  which  gleams  in  the 
sunlight  against  the  purple  background  of  the  mountains.  But  when 
surveying  the  great  plant  built  by  him  in  Albany,  and  his  work  for  his 
native  village,  how  interesting  is  the  story  of  the  early  days  of  his 

xii 


FOREWORD 


venture  and  his  struggle  to  perfect  a  new  product  for  the  American 
market. 

In  the  joining-room  at  the  Kenwood  Plant  to-day  a  woman  is  em- 
ployed who  well  remembers  the  first  mill  in  Rensselaerville  and  the 
teams  of  horses  that  delivered,  for  joining,  the  felts  to  farmers'  wives 
sometimes  as  far  distant  from  the  mill  as  twenty  miles.  There  were 
special  days  for  delivery  and  special  days  when  the  felts  were  collected, 
and  the  load  was  then  returned  to  the  mill  to  be  prepared  for  shipment. 
In  the  light  of  these  early  conditions  the  progress  in  felt-making  during 
the  last  half-century  seems  extraordinary.  The  mill  of  fifty  years  ago 
has  expanded  into  a  plant  covering  several  acres,  having  within  its 
walls  the  equipment  for  every  process  of  converting  raw  wool  into  felts, 
and  possessing  in  place  of  its  primitive  means  of  conveyance,  its  own 
railroad  sidetracks  on  which  the  wool  is  received  from  far  distant 
lands  and  the  felts  are  started  on  their  journey  to  every  quarter  of 
the  paper-making  world. 

In  presenting  this  book  F.  C.  Huyck  &  Sons  desire  us  to  dwell  not 
alone  on  the  bare  facts  of  the  manufacture  of  paper  and  paper-makers' 
felts  during  the  last  half-century,  but  to  present  the  story  in  such  a  way 
that  something  of  the  romance  of  the  industries  may  be  seen.  Much 
has  already  been  written  on  the  early  development  of  the  paper  in- 
dustry through  Europe  and  Asia,  but  in  all  of  these  accounts  too  little 
has  been  said  concerning  the  importance  of  the  product.  Let  it  be 
remembered  that  paper  is  the  cheapest  and  most  familiar  article  in  use 
at  home  and  abroad;  without  it,  education  would  be  seriously  retarded; 
without  it,  the  news  of  the  world  would  not  reach  the  public;  without 
it,  letters  would  not  hasten  across  continents,  and  yet  paper  remains 
the  commonest  article  in  daily  use — the  plaything  of  the  child,  the 
necessity  of  commerce,  the  requisite  in  every  business  office.  In  short, 
it  is  the  medium  of  progress,  intellectual,  industrial,  social,  and  com- 
mercial; and  although  the  process  of  manufacture  was  discovered 
nearly  two  thousand  years  ago,  it  is  still  a  more  important  invention 
than  the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  the  automobile,  the  aeroplane,  or 
the  wireless. 


Xlll 


FOOT-BRIDGE  AT  RENSSELAERVILLE,  N.Y. 

Thick  foliage  and  the  leaves  of  wild-grape  vines  that  have  clambered  over  the  trees  and  shrubs 

almost  completely  hide  the  foundations  of  the  old  mill  on  which  rests  one  end  of 

the  bridge  which  now  spans  the  stream  below  the  foot  of  the  falls 


CHINESE  PAPER-MAKING—FIRST  PROCESS 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT 
OF   PAPER 

|ENTURIES  ago  the  Chinese  with  the  subtle  magic 
of  the  East  produced  a  material  suitable  for  writing 
purposes  that  they  made  from  the  bark  of  the  mul- 
berry-tree; shortly  afterward  they  utilized  rags  for 
paper.  And  yet  the  world  was  old  when  this  im- 
portant discovery  was  made.  For  thousands  of  years 
man,  born  with  a  desire  to  express  his  thoughts,  had  endeavored  to 
perpetuate  great  deeds  and  the  lives  of  heroes.  First  with  rough 
implements  he  carved  his  thoughts  in  rude  characters  on  rock  and 
stone;  four  thousand  years  before  Christ  he  reared  against  the  Egyp- 
tian sky  tapering  obelisks;  he  adorned  the  temples  and  sepulchres  with 
hieroglyphics  that  told  tales  of  those  who  had  passed.  In  order  to 
transcribe  his  thoughts  he  resorted  to  beeswaxed  board,  to  the  skins 
and  entrails  of  animals,  to  the  shoulder-bones  of  sheep,  to  the  skins 
of  serpents.  He  made  parchment — a  direct  forerunner  of  paper — and 
thus  bridged  the  centuries  until  he  discovered  the  properties  of  the 
graceful  reed  that  grew  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  Thus  papyrus 


CHINESE  PAPER-MAKING—SECOND   PROCESS 


CHINESE  PAPER-MAKING— THIRD  PROCESS 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

marked  the  first  real  advance  toward  modern  paper-making,  and  on  it 
events  were  recorded  until  the  Chinese  marked  a  new  era  by  the 
discovery  of  paper-making. 

INTRODUCTION  OF   THE   ART  OF   PAPER-MAKING 
INTO  EUROPE 

How  the  Arabs  after  their  capture  of  Samarcand  in  A.D.  704  stole 
from  the  Chinese  the  secret  of  paper-making  and  carried  it  to  their 
own  towns  and  cities,  and  how  the  Crusaders  in  their  turn  when  they 
visited  Palestine  and  Syria  learned  the  art  which  they  brought  back 
to  Western  Europe,  has  been  often  told.  Europe,  however,  was  slow 
in  developing  the  industry.  It  was  not  until  1189  A.D.  that  France 
made  paper  from  pulp.  For  some  centuries  the  French  and  Dutch 
were  the  leading  paper-makers  in  Europe. 


INTERIOR  VIEWS  OF  A  SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY  PAPER-MILL 

Upper  picture  shows  sorting  and  cutting  of  the  rags  prior  to  the  rotting 
Lower  picture  shows  serving  the  rotting-trough 

(Sff  page  5  for  description) 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


SELECTION  OR  SORTING  OF   DIFFERENT  QUALITIES  OF  RAGS, 
CUTTING-BOX,  AND   ROTTING-TROUGH 

FIGURE  I 

AAA     are  three  large  boxes,  each  divided  into  three  compartments  to  separate  three 
different  qualities  of  rags. 

I,  2,  3  Compartments  for  the  fine,  the  medium,  and  the  foul. 

BBB     Sorting-  and  fermenting  -women  who  attend  in  pairs  to  the  three  compartments. 
I,  2  Knives  used  by  the  sorting-women  to  rake  the  rags. 

C     One  of  these  knives  viewed  separately. 

D     Coarse  paper  rags  or  trace-paper,  a  mixture  of  scrapings  that  the  sorting-women 
throw  at  their  feet. 

E     Opening  through  which  the  rags  are  thrown  into  the  rotting-trough. 

LM,  MN,  MO.     Width  of  the  boxes  that  receive  the  rags. 

FIGURE  II 

A     Conduit  or  gutter  which  supplies  water  to  the  rotting-trough. 
B     Wooden  vat  receiving  the  water  and  serving  the  rotting-trough. 
C     Stone  vat  sometimes  serving  the  rotting-trough. 
D     Stone  box  encased  in  wood  in  which  the  rags  are  cut. 
E     Back  chamfer  or  blade  fixed  into  this  cutting-box. 
F     Rag-cutter. 

G     Rag-tub,  a  small  wooden  vat  in  which  the  rags  are  carried  to  the  mill. 
H    Heaps  of  rags  which  are  in  a  state  of  fermentation  in  the  corners  of  the  rotting- 
trough. 

I,  2,  3  Rags  falling  from  the  sorting-room  into  the  rotting-room. 


PAPER-MILL  SITUATED   IN  GRANDRIF  IN  AUVERGNE 

FIGURE  I 

A     Channel  of  the  stream  that  supplies  water  to  the  mill  and  to  the  interior  works. 

B     Willow  basket  by  which  the  water  passes  to  drain  C. 

C     Drain  which  supplies  the  water  to  the  large  washing-trough. 

D     Loop-hole  that  checks  the  force  of  the  water  and  its  impurities. 

E     Large  washing-trough  where  the  water  is  purified. 

F     Basket  across  which  the  water  passes  into  the  drain  G. 

G     Drain  which  supplies  water  to  the  small  washing-trough. 

H    Another  loop-hole  for  purifying  the  water. 

/      Small  washing-trough  where  the  water  completes  the  process  of  depositing  its 
gravel. 

K    Grating  by  which  the  water  passes  into  the  long  vat. 

L     Drain  which  leads  the  water  to  the  long  vat. 

M    Loop-hole  viewed  separately,  taken  down  and  out  of  the  reservoir. 

N    Rack  across  which  the  water  of  the  stream  arrives  on  the  wheel. 

0     First  gripe,  groove,  or  trough  which  leads  the  water  to  the  wheel. 

P     Conduit,  second  groove,  or  trough. 

Q     Hooks  or  pins  that  are  unhooked  to  turn  off  the  water  above  the  wheel. 

RR  Millwheel. 

SS  Shaft  which  raises  the  hammers.     Instead  of  the  iron  hoops  which  should  have 
been  represented  in  the  figure,  mouldings  have  been  made. 
I,  2  Cogs  or  bolts  that  raise  the  hammers. 

T    Part  of  the  long  vat  that  supplies  the  w&ter  in  the  stamp-mill. 

^FBack  and  front  guides  that  hold  the  mallets. 

X    Mallets  which  hack  or  cut  to  pieces  the  rags  in  the  stamp-mill. 

Y    Frame  in  which  the  felt  is  washed. 

5 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


S 


INTERIOR  VIEW  OF  A  SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY  PAPER-MILL 

Interior  of  the  stamp-mill  where  the  rags  are  pounded 

(Description  below) 


I 
K 
L 
M 

pile. 


INTERIOR  OF  THE   STAMP-MILL 
FIGURE  I 

Perspective  of  the  Mill 
A     The  millwheel. 
BE  The  shaft  of  the  bolts. 
C     Bolts  that  raise  the  hammers. 
D     Mallets,  stampers,  hammers  which  pound  the  rags. 
E     Front  guides  which  carry  the  tails  of  the  hammers. 

e  Back  guides  which  carry  the  heads  of  the  hammers. 
FF  Shaft  of  the  vats  or  stamp-mill  in  which  the  vats  are  hollowed. 
G     Hollows  or  stamp-holes. 
HH  Long  vat  or  conduit  which  leads  the  water  into  the  stamp-mill. 

1,  i,  I  Hooks  which  support  the  long  vat  against  the  wall. 

2,  2,  2  Channels  or  conduits  which  give  the  water  to  the  tubs. 
Small  post. 

Large  post. 

The  frame  of  the  mill  which  carries  the  entire  apparatus. 

Rag-tub  or  -bucket  in  which  is  put  the  refined  stuff  after  leaving  the  workman' 


NN  Receptacles  or  boxes  for  receiving  the  rags  on  leaving  the  stamp-mill. 

PROCESS  OF  FORMING  OR  MOULDING,  LAYING,  AND  PRESSING  THE 

SHEETS 
FIGURE  I 

A     Laborer,  plunger,  or  opener,  standing  to  his  waist  on  a  trestle  before  the  stuff-vat, 
drawing  from  the  vat  his  mould  filled  with  a  layer  of  pulp  to  slide  it  to  the  coucher. 
B     Workman's  tub  containing  the  diluted  and  hot  pulp. 

b  Opening  of  the  kettle  which  heats  the  interior  of  the  tub. 
C     Deckle  of  the  mould. 
DD  Forms  or  moulds  seen  on  both  sides. 

F     Coucher  who  receives  the  mould  filled  with  a  sheet  and  reverses  it  on  the  cloth  or 
felt. 

/  Lid  of  the  board  which  is  put  on  the  post  before  pressing. 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

G     Post  or  collection  of  sheets,  separated  from  one  another  by  a  felt. 

£  Hooked  tool  or  stick  to  draw  the  post  under  the  press. 
////  Press  to  squeeze  the  water  out  of  the  post. 

I,  2,  3  Pieces  of  wood  which  serve  to  load  the  post  when  it  is  put  under  the  press. 

5  Small  board  upon  which  the  mould  is  slipped. 

6  Dropping-board  or  drainer  on  which  the  plunger  places  his  mould. 
7,  8  Staves  of  the  dropping-board  against  which  the  mould  is  set. 

/      Apprentice,  felt-lifter,  who  uncovers  each  sheet  and  returns  the  felt  to  the  coucher. 

A'     Paper-lifter,  who  detaches  the  sheets  above  the  felt  and  places  them  on  the  inclined 
stool  upon  which  he  forms  the  white  post. 

L     Small  press  where  the  paper  is  pressed  in  white  post. 

M    Copper  basin  for  putting  the  pulp  into  the  tub. 

R     Wooden  bar  or  stick  used  to  moderate  the  force  of  the  press  when  the  lever  is 
turned. 

SIZING  THE  PAPER 
FIGURE  I 

A     Workman  who  raises  the  basket  which  contains  the  waste  of  the  size. 

B     Workman  who  passes  it  through  the  strainer  to  separate  the  dirt. 

C     Workman  who  sizes  the  sheets  of  paper,  wetting  them  in  the  sizing-trough. 

D     Press  where  the  workman  deposits  the  sized  paper  to  get  rid  of  the  excess  of  size. 
dd  Small  spruce  boards  used  by  the  sizer. 

E     Lower  board  of  the  press  in  which  there  is  a  drain. 

F     Tub  to  receive  the  excess  size  that  flows  down  the  press. 

G     Vat  where  the  size  is  boiled. 

H    Vat  where  the  size  is  strained. 

/      Sizing-trough  in  which  the  sizing  is  done  and  in  which  a  gentle  heat  is  maintained. 

K    Basket  filled  with  the  animal  refuse  from  which  the  size  is  made. 

L     Pulley  for  withdrawing  the  basket  from  the  vat. 

PAPER  HANGING-SHEDS 

FIGURE  I 

A     Perspective  of  a  section  of  hanging-shed. 

B    Woman  who  puts  the  paper  in  a  pile  before  taking  it  to  the  polisher. 
C     Woman  who  hangs  the  paper  with  her  peel. 
D    Woman  who  takes  off  the  paper  when  it  is  dry. 
E     Bench  for  the  drying-women. 

F     Seat  which  carries  the  piles  of  paper  when  they  are  spread. 
GG  Pillars  or  legs  which  support  the  truss  of  the  hanging-shed. 

PROCESS  OF  POLISHING  BY  HAND  AND  BY  HAMMER;    SORTING-  AND 
COUNTING-WOMEN 

FIGURE  I 
A  A    Polishing-women  who  rub  the  paper  with  a  pebble. 

aaa  Pebbles  called  polishers, 
o  fife  the°fa  nig"W°men  who  examine  the  PaPer  by  transparent  and  oblique  light  to  rec- 

C     Sorting-woman  who  dusts  the  paper  with  a  knife. 

1,  I  Polishers  viewed  separately. 

2,  2  Knives  of  the  sorting-women. 
D    Piles  of  paper. 

FIGURE  II 

A     Laborer  who  holds  the  paper  under  the  hammer  to  polish  the  large  kind. 
K     Hammer  the  handle  of  which  traverses  the  main  wall 

o  Paper  under  the  hammer. 
C     Shaft  of  the  hammer  moved  by  water. 
~     £he  anvil  uP°n  wm'ch  the  paper  is  placed. 
LL  The  same  anvil  taken  down  and  shown  separately 
t      rtock  or  block  in  which  the  foot  of  the  anvil  is  encased. 

Piles  of  paper  that  have  been  polished. 

IO 


INTERIOR  VIEWS  OF  A  SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY  PAPER-MILL 

Upper  picture  shows  polishing  by  hand  and  by  hammer 
Lower  picture  shows  polishing  large  sheets 

(S^  Page  10  for  description) 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


FIRST    PAPER-MILL    IX    AMERICA 

It  is  generally  believed  that  the  first  paper-mill  in  England  was  es- 
tablished in  1498 — though  the  first  patents  for  mills  were  not  granted 
there  until  1690,  the  same  year  that  William  Rittenhouse,  a  native  of 
Holland,  and  one  of  the  early  settlers  of  Germantown,  Pennsylvania, 
started  at  Roxborough,  near  Philadelphia,  the  first  paper-mill  in 
America.  William  Bradford,  a  printer  of  Philadelphia,  who  after- 
ward established  the  first  printing-office  in  New  York  City,  was 
interested  in  this  first  paper-mill,  which  was  built  on  what  was 
then  known  as  Paper-Mill  Run  and  is  now  included  in  Fairmount 
Park  in  Philadelphia. 

The  paper  at  the  Rittenhouse  Mill  was  made  by  hand — as  indeed 
was  all  paper  produced  in  America  during  the  next  century  and  a 
quarter — out  of  linen  rags  that  were  manufactured  from  flax  raised 
in  the  colony,  where  the  women  wove  their  own  wearing  apparel. 
Every  sheet  of  paper  was  made  separately,  and  several  days  were 
necessary  in  order  to  finish  the  product.  Bradford,  whose  vigor  and 
shrewdness  were  so  necessary  to  the  little  mill,  and  who,  it  is  said,  had 
come  from  England  to  Pennsylvania  for  the  purpose  of  establishing 
a  printing-press,  had  some  trouble  with  the  leaders  of  the  colony 
that  led  to  his  departure,  in  1693,  for  New  York.  With  others  who 
had  interests  in  the  mill  he  eventually  disposed  of  his  share  to  William 
Rittenhouse,  who  in  turn  deeded  the  property  to  his  son,  Claus. 
Before  this,  however, — in  1701, — the  first  mill  was  destroyed  by  a 
freshet  and  a  new  building  had  been  erected  a  short  distance  from  the 
original  site.  The  third  Rittenhouse  paper-mill  was  built  by  a  grand- 
son of  the  founder  farther  down  Paper-Mill  Run,  and  was  standing 
until  nearly  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  and  operated  for  its 
entire  existence  by  members  of  the  Rittenhouse  family.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  note  that  William  Bradford,  in  1723,  introduced  Benjamin 
Franklin  in  Philadelphia  and  was  influential  in  securing  employment 
for  him  in  that  city. 

OTHER   EARLY   AMERICAN    PAPER-MILLS 

The  second  paper-mill  in  the  colonies  was  built  by  William  De 
Wees,  a  brother-in-law  of  Nicholas  Rittenhouse,  son  of  the  first  paper- 
maker,  and  was  established  near  Germantown,  Pennsylvania,  in  1710. 
Forty  years  after  the  founding  of  the  first  paper-mill  in  America,  a 

13 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRI  ES 

third  mill  was  established  by  Thomas  Willcox,  an  Englishman,  who 
with  Thomas  Brown  in  August,  1729,  began  to  make  paper  in  Chester 
Creek,  about  twenty  miles  from  Philadelphia.  Mr.  Willcox  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  son,  Mark,  on  whose  death  in  1827  a  local  writer,  accord- 
ing to  Henry  Graham  Ashmead's  History  of  Delaware  County,  Penn- 
sylvania, says: — 

"Two  men  of  two  generations,  father  and  son,  had  conducted  the 
mill  ninety-eight  years.  The  ponderous  machinery,  however,  of 
modern  mills  silenced  it  long  ago,  but  it  still  stands  (1884)  a  silent 
relic  of  its  early  time.  Its  wheel  has  long  since  decayed;  its  stone  gable 
is  thickly  covered  with  the  venerable  ivy-vine  whose  root  came  over 
the  ocean  in  1718,  from  near  the  old  Ivy  Bridge  in  Devonshire." 

It  was  from  the  Willcox  mill  that  Benjamin  Franklin,  a  friend  of 
Thomas  Willcox,  procured  most  of  his  paper  stock  and  here  during 
the  Revolution  the  Government  had  its  currency  made.  Again  in 
1812  the  Willcox  Ivy  Mill  supplied  paper  money. 

FIRST  MASSACHUSETTS  MILL 

On  September  13,  1728,  Massachusetts,  which  not  until  this  time 
caught  the  spirit  of  Pennsylvania  in  establishing  paper-mills,  encour- 
aged the  industry  by  granting  a  patent  to  a  number  of  estimable 
citizens,  among  them  Daniel  Henchman,  Gillam  Phillips,  Benjamin 
Faneuil,  Thomas  Hancock,  and  Henry  "Dering."  These  men  were 
given  the  sole  right  to  manufacture  paper  for  a  term  of  ten  years.  At 
present,  when  the  daily  production  of  paper  is  measured  by  the 
hundred  tons,  it  is  amusing  to  learn  that  one  of  the  conditions  granted 
this  little  mill  for  the  sole  right  to  manufacture  paper  was  that  it 
should  make  in  the  first  fifteen  months  forty  reams  of  brown  paper 
and  sixty  reams  of  printing-paper;  the  second  year  it  must  make  fifty 
reams  of  writing-paper  in  addition  to  the  first-mentioned  quantity; 
and  afterward  yearly  it  must  make  in  addition  to  the  quantity  required 
the  first  and  second  year  twenty-five  reams  of  a  superior  quality  of 
writing-paper  and  produce  in  all  not  less  than  five  hundred  reams  a 
year.  The  superintendent  of  the  mill  was  Henry  Woodman,  an 
Englishman.  As  some  one  has  said,  the  owners  of  the  mill  would  be 
considered  a  "respectable  firm."  Daniel  Henchman  was  the  leading 
Boston  bookseller  of  the  time;  Thomas  Hancock  was  the  builder  and 
owner  of  the  historic  mansion  on  Beacon  Street,  Boston,  and  the 
uncle  of  John  Hancock,  to  whom  he  bequeathed  his  estate  and  fortune; 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

Benjamin  Faneuil  was  the  father  of  Peter  Faneuil,  who  gave  the 
famous  hall  to  Boston;  Gillam  Phillips  married  Peter  FaneuiPs  sister, 
and  was  a  brother  of  that  young  Phillips  who  fought  a  duel  with 
Woodbridge  on  Boston  Common  in  1726.  These  men  decided  that 
they  would  build  their  mill  in  what  was  then  Dorchester  but  is  now 
Milton,  and  their  venture  prospered  at  first  and  then  apparently  died. 
Though  records  give  but  meagre  information,  it  is  known  that  one 
Jeremiah  Smith  bought  the  mill  and  allowed  it  to  remain  idle.  In 
1760  James  Boies  of  Boston  sent  a  paper-maker  from  a  British  regi- 
ment to  the  mill  in  order  that  he  might  start  the  work,  but  the  young 
man's  regiment  was  ordered  to  Quebec  and  there  he  fell  while  fighting 
Wolfe.  Richard  Clark,  an  Englishman  also,  was  the  next  foreman. 
Eventually  the  mill  passed  into  the  possession  of  Tileston  and  Hollings- 
worth,  who  have  manufactured  paper  in  that  vicinity  since  early  in  the 
nineteenth  century. 

FIRST   NEW    YORK   MILL 

Among  other  paper-making  enterprises  was  a  mill  built  in  Norwich, 
Connecticut,  in  1768  and  operated  by  Christopher  Leffingwell.  In 
this  year  also  the  first  paper-mill  in  New  York  was  built  at  Hempstead 
on  Long  Island  by  Hendrick  Onderdonk  and  Henry  Remsen,  the 
enterprise  being  encouraged  by  Hugh  Caine,  a  printer.  In  the  South 
various  means  were  taken  to  encourage  the  industry,  the  Maryland 
Convention  of  1775  offering  £400  to  one  James  Dorsett  for  starting 
a  paper-mill,  while  in  that  same  year  South  Carolina  offered  £500  to 
any  one  who  would  build  the  first  mill.  In  North  Carolina  similar 
measures  were  taken  to  encourage  the  industry  that  as  early  as  1776 
had  been  started  by  German  Moravians,  who  did  much  toward  estab- 
lishing several  forms  of  productive  efforts. 

SCARCITY  OF  PAPER  DURING  THE  REVOLUTION 

In  spite  of  all  these  ventures  on  the  part  of  the  colonists  the  supply 
of  paper  by  no  means  met  the  demands,  and  long  before  the  Revolution 
the  situation  had  become  serious  and  the  colonists  had  already  not 
only  pleaded  that  rags  be  saved,  but  that  economy  be  exercised  in 
saving  paper  during  the  war. 

^When  General    Philip    Schuyler    wrote    in    1775    from    Albany   to 
General  Washington,  he  said: — 

16 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

"Excuse  these  scraps  of  paper;  necessity  obliges  me  to  use  them, 
having  no  other  fit  to  write  on." 

The  following  year  when  John  Adams  wrote  from  Philadelphia 
to  his  wife,  he  adds:  — 

"I  send  you,  now  and  then,  a  few  sheets  of  paper;  but  this  article  is 
scarce  here  as  with  you." 

The  same  year  Colonel  David  Oilman  of  New  Hampshire  complains 
that  his  "officers  here  make  a  great  complaint  for  want  of  paper. 
They  cannot  receive  the  necessary  orders,  and  make  proper  returns 
of  their  company  for  want  of  that  article." 


OTHER    EARLY   MILLS 

To  meet  these  needs  various  conventions  were  held  and  the  problem 
agitated  and  sifted  as  best  the  colonists  were  able.  The  first  mill  built 
in  Central  Massachusetts  was  said  to  be  the  best  in  the  country. 
This  was  started  by  Abijah  Burbank  in  1775,  while  that  of  Jackson 
and  Sharpless,  built  in  Western  Pennsylvania  in  1796,  was  thought 
of  as  a  matchless  enterprise.  At  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War 
it  is  thought  that  there  were  in  America  about  eighty  or  ninety  mills, 
many  of  the  finest  being  in  Massachusetts.  In  Springfield,  Massa- 
chusetts, there  was  established  a  mill  that  during  the  nineteenth 
century  was  developed  by  the  Ames  family;  in  Andover,  Samuel 
Phillips,  founder  of  Phillips  Academy,  built  a  mill;  and  John  Ware  of 
Sherburne  built  in  1790  at  Newton  Lower  Falls,  near  Waltham,  the 
mill  that  gave  Newton  its  first  and  long  prestige  in  the  paper-making 
world. 

Paper-mills  sprang  up  in  Worcester,  Massachusetts;  Rhode  Island 
established  its  first  mill  in  1780;  Connecticut  was  coming  to  the  front 
in  the  manufacture  of  paper;  Vermont,  where  Colonel  Matthew  Lyon 
was  the  first  manufacturer,  achieved  some  fame  in  the  industry;  New 
York's  first  mill  was  built  on  the  Poestenkill,  a  small  creek  near  the 
Hudson  River,  a  short  distance  from  Troy;  while  Wilmington,  Dela- 
ware, in  which  was  located  the  paper-mill  of  Joshua  and  Thomas 
Gilpin,  received  special  comment  from  De  Warville,  a  noted  states- 
man of  France,  when  he  visited  America  in  1788.  "I  have  specimens," 
he  said,  "both  of  writing  and  printing,  equal  to  the  finest  made  in 
France."  Pennsylvania  developed  the  industry  rapidly  under  the 
watchful  eye  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  whom  De  Warville  says  was  the 
means  of  starting  eighteen  mills.  William  Goddard  of  Baltimore 

17 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

aided  the  industry  in  his  own  town,  while  in  Kentucky  the  enter- 
prise was  undertaken  by  Craig,  Parker  and  Company  in  1793. 

Immediately  following  the  Revolutionary  War,  not  only  were  paper- 
mills  rapidly  built,  but  improvements  in  machinery  and  processes  were 
introduced,  and  the  first  patent  law,  passed  in  1790  for  the  protection 
of  inventors,  gave  encouragement  to  those  few  who  had  been  experi- 
menting in  paper-making.  Growth,  however,  was  slow,  and  for  many 
years  America  depended  on  Europe  for  machinery,  and  paper-makers' 
felts  were  not  made  here  until  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  century  after 
the  passing  of  the  first  United  States  patent  law. 


THE  ERA  OF  RAGS  AND  THE  INTENTION  AND  DEVELOP- 
MENT OF  PAPER-MAKING  MACHINES 

The  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  marked  an  increasing 
activity  in  the  manufacture  of  paper  in  America  and  abroad.  From 
the  first  little  paper-mill  with  a  capacity  of  one  vat  in  Columbia 
County,  New  York,  came  a  call  for  rags;  from  the  thriving  mill  of 
Zenas  Crane  in  Berkshire  County,  Massachusetts,  a  similar  call  was 
given  until  the  situation  was  relieved  somewhat  by  the  importation 
of  European  rags.  Mr.  Crane,  whose  mill  was  founded  in  1799  in 
what  came  to  be  one  of  the  great  paper-manufacturing  sections  of 
America,  sent  out  in  1801  the  following  appeal  for  rags: — 

AMERICANS! 

Encourage  your  own  Manufactories  and  they  will  improve. 
Ladies,  save  your  Rags! 

As  the  subscribers  have  it  in  contemplation  to  erect  a  paper-mill  in  Dalton 
the  ensuing  Spring;  and  the  business  being  very  beneficial  to  the  community 
at  large,  they  flatter  themselves  that  they  shall  meet  with  due  encouragement. 
And  that  every  woman  who  has  the  good  of  her  country  and  the  interest  of 
her  own  family  at  heart,  will  patronize  them  by  saving  their  rags  and  sending 
them  to  their  Manufactory,  or  to  the  nearest  Store-keeper — for  which  the 
Subscribers  will  give  a  generous  price. 

HENRY  WISWELL, 
ZENAS  CRANE, 

JOHN  WILLARD. 
WORCESTER,  Feb.  8,  1801. 


18 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


EXPERIMENTS  OX  NEW  MATERIAL   FOR   PAPER 

While  there  were  insistent  calls  for  rags  in  different  parts  of  America, 
experiments  were  being  made  all  over  the  world  to  procure  for  paper- 
making  other  and  new  fibres  as  raw  materials.  In  1800  the  Marquis 
of  Salisbury  gave  to  the  King  of  England  a  book  made  of  paper  manu- 
factured from  straw.  In  this  same  year  Matthias  Koops  made  seven 
hundred  reams  of  white  paper  from  waste  that  had  previously  been 
thrown  away.  In  Spain  at  this  time  there  were  upward  of  two  hun- 
dred paper-mills;  in  Alsace,  France,  there  were  fourteen;  and  in  Jaro- 
slow,  Russia,  a  single  paper-mill  with  twenty-eight  machines  and 
seventy  vats  was  manufacturing  eleven  hundred  reams  of  paper  a  week 
and  using  eight  hundred  tons  of  rags  a  year;  while  in  Germany  there 
were  said  to  be  more  than  five  hundred  mills  in  operation. 

In  1804  Messrs.  Henry  and  Sealey  Fourdrinier  began  experiments 
that  resulted  in  the  famous  Fourdrinier  machine,  which  converted  fluid 
stock  into  finished  paper,  and  which  was  introduced  into  America 
about  1820. 

The  Gilpins,  famous  paper-makers  on  the  Brandywine,  were  said  to 
be  the  first  to  use  these  machines.  Added  to  the  cost  of  machinery, 
the  shortage  of  raw  material,  and  the  effect  of  the  War  of  1812,  the 
paper  industry  was  seriously  affected  for  a  number  of  years. 

The  Ames  family  in  Springfield  continued  to  do  a  prosperous  busi- 
ness until  the  panic  of  1837  which  resulted  in  the  sale  of  their  mills. 
The  business  started  by  Zenas  Crane  in  the  Berkshires  so  flourished 
that  between  1810  and  1825  upward  of  thirty  mills  were  established 
in  Massachusetts  alone.  Nearly  all  the  pioneer  mills  managed,  how- 
ever, to  weather  the  various  storms  of  adversities  and  to  lay  firm 
foundations  for  the  great  paper  companies  that  have  made  the  Ameri- 
can product  famous.  At  the  time  the  paper-machines  were  introduced 
into  the  United  States,  about  1820,  it  was  estimated  that  the  average 
paper  production  of  the  mills  was  about  $3,000,000  and  the  cost  of 
operation  was  about  $2,000,000. 

What  the  succeeding  century  brought  forth,  even  the  greatest  seer 
of  1820  could  not  have  foretold  nor  the  most  exalted  visionary  have 
imagined.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century  marked  by  that  year  all 
of  the  paper  made  in  America  was  produced  by  the  long,  laborious 
hand-process,  rags  forming  the  fibres.  The  little  mills  where  this 
paper  was  made  dotted  inland  streams.  Nearly  half  of  the  century 
passed  before  wood  pulp  was  proved  available,  and  with  its  consump- 

19 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

tion  the  little  mills  were  one  by  one  abandoned  and  the  industry  sought 
the  great  rivers  that  flowed  through  forests,  the  one  to  give  the  water- 
power  necessary,  and  the  other  to  yield  its  virgin  growth  of  spruce  for 
the  growing  demands  of  the  newspaper  world.  With  the  enormous 
production  came  some  of  the  greatest  engineering  feats  that  the  world 
has  ever  known. 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  FOURDRINIER  MACHINE 

The  period  ushered  in  by  the  Fourdrinier  machine  therefore  marked 
an  important  epoch  in  American  paper  production,  what  might  be 
termed  the  second  era,  extending  up  to  the  time  when  pulp  was  con- 
sumed in  vast  quantities  here  a  half-century  later.  What  is  known  as 
the  Fourdrinier  machine  was  originally  made,  though  not  perfected, 
by  Nicholas  Louis  Robert  of  France,  who,  finding  himself  impov- 
erished by  the  French  Revolution,  sold  the  patent  granted  to  him  by 
the  French  Government  to  Frangois  Didot,  formerly  his  employer. 
The  payments  made  by  the  purchaser  came  so  slowly  that  Robert 
recovered  his  patent  in  1801,  but  not  before  Didot  had  gone  to  England 
where  he  met  his  brother-in-law,  John  Gamble,  to  whom  he  proposed 
furnishing  capital  for  the  patent  in  England. 

Henry  and  Sealey  Fourdrinier,  two  flourishing  London  stationers, 
were  interested  in  the  machine  and  eventually  plans  were  formed  to 
build  the  first  paper-making  machine  in  England.  By  1803  the  per- 
fected machines  were  set  up  at  "Two  Waters"  Mill,  Hereford,  and 
Gamble  after  suffering  severe  losses  turned  over  his  entire  interest  in 
the  machine  to  the  Fourdriniers,  who,  after  spending  their  fortune 
amounting  to  about  £60,000  on  the  improved  machine,  went  into 
bankruptcy,  ending  their  days  without  money  save  a  small  allowance 
which  the  London  Times  had  raised  to  aid  Henry  Fourdrinier. 


INVENTION  OF  THE   CYLINDER  MACHINE 

The  manufacture  of  paper  was  further  aided  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  by  a  cylinder-making  machine,  the  invention  of 
J.  Dickinson,  the  founder  of  John  Dickinson  and  Company,  Limited, 
who  conceived  the  idea  of  carrying  the  liquid  paper  stock  in  a  vat  in 
whrch  was  suspended  a  cylinder  covered  with  a  fine  wire  mesh.  As 
the  cylinder  revolved,  this  paper  stock  was  carried  in  a  thin  film  from 
the  vat  to  the  top  of  the  cylinder,  from  which  point  a  felt  carried  it 

20 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

along  to  the  other  parts  of  the  machine.  The  Fourdrinier  machine, 
on  the  other  hand,  which  preserves  the  names  of  the  developers,  and 
which  with  the  cylinder  and  Harper-Fourdrinier  are  the  principal 
paper-making  machines  in  use  to-day,  has  an  endless  wire  screen  over 
which  the  liquid  paper  stock  is  poured  and  shaken  until  the  fibres  are 
spread  evenly.  The  liquid  pulp  is  confined  by  strips  of  rubber — other- 
wise known  as  deckle-straps — that  run  along  the  edges  of  the  screen. 
The  water  is  gradually  shaken  through  the  Fourdrinier  wire,  or  screen, 
as  it  passes  over  a  series  of  suction-boxes,  leaving  the  pulp  sufficiently 
dry  to  be  pressed  under  a  roll  covered  by  a  heavy  woolen  "jacket."  It 
is  then  delivered  to  the  paper-makers'  felt,  which  receives  it  in  its 
moist  state. 

USE  OF  COTTON  AND  LINEN  RAGS 

For  a  half-century  after  the  introduction  of  the  Fourdrinier  machine 
in  America  the  paper-mills  depended  for  fibre  on  cotton  and  linen  rags, 
which  are  now  used  only  for  bond  and  writing  papers.  The  rags  util- 
ized to-day  are  imported  from  Europe  and  Asia  and  are  received  at 
the  mills  in  bales.  After  being  dusted  and  sorted  they  are  cut  up  into 
small  pieces  and  are  cooked  in  boilers  containing  a  solution  of  lime  for 
the  removal  of  non-cellulose  substances.  Afterward  the  rags  are 
washed  and  reduced  to  pulp,  which  is  bleached  by  the  addition  of 
chloride  of  lime.  Drainers  next  receive  the  solution,  which  is  allowed 
to  stand  for  about  a  week,  during  which  the  bleach  dries  and  the  mass 
remains  a  snow-white  heap  ready  for  conversion  into  the  fine  writing- 
papers  for  which  America  is  noted.  The  remainder  of  the  process  is 
very  similar  to  that  undergone  in  a  subsequent  account  of  "a  modern 
paper-mill." 

CHANGES  MARKED  BY  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

The  Civil  War  brought  a  marked  change  in  the  manufacture  of 
paper.  Like  all  industries,  during  the  period  of  conflict  the  trade 
wavered,  then  grew  strong  again,  and  by  the  end  of  hostilities  new 
machinery  was  placed  in  the  mills,  new  mills  were  built,  and  gradually 
the  little  streams  were  abandoned  and  larger  water-power  sought.  The 
rag  supply  was  again  precious,  and  experiments  were  made  in  the  use 
of  straw,  manila,  and  finally  wood  pulp.  Frequent  attempts  had  been 
made  in  various  quarters  of  the  world  to  use  wood  for  the  manufacture 

21 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

of  paper.  As  early,  in  fact,  as  1826,  Italian  paper-makers  had  suc- 
cessfully used  the  bark  of  the  poplar  and  willow,  the  former  being 
found  best  adapted  to  the  purpose.  In  1833  an  Englishman  had  been 
granted  a  patent  for  making  paper  and  pasteboard  from  wood,  and 
in  1855  another  patent  was  granted  in  England  for  the  manufacture 
of  paper  from  pulp. 

USE    OF    WOOD    PULP 

Nearly  a  decade  after  this,  paper  made  from  rags  and  pulp  was 
exhibited  in  London,  and  in  1867  a  machine  was  exhibited  in  Paris  for 
grinding  wood  pulp.  A  machine  very  like  this  was  brought  to  America 
and  pulp  ground  first  in  this  country  at  Stockbridge,  Massachusetts, 
in  1867.  This  pulp  was  produced  at  the  rate  of  about  half  a  ton  a  day, 
formed  into  cakes  by  hand,  and  shipped  at  a  price  of  eight  cents  a 
pound  to  the  paper-mills.  An  important  discovery  had  been  made  in 
1861  by  an  American  named  Tilghman,  who  found  a  means  of  dissolv- 
ing the  resinous  substances  of  wood  by  what  is  known  as  the  sulphite 
process.  Some  years  nevertheless  passed  before  wood  pulp  was  ac- 
cepted as  the  coming  paper  fibre.  An  English  journal  of  1874  stated 
that  "great  endeavors  had  been  made  to  introduce  wood  pulp  as  a 
fibre,  but  practical  paper-makers  deem  it  a  failure.  Two  kinds  are 
in  general  use,  mechanically  prepared  and  chemically  prepared.  The 
great  fault  of  the  first  is  its  weakness — after  all,  it  is  mere  sawdust. 
The  chemically  prepared  seems  a  good  fibre,  but  its  price,  at  twenty 
pounds  wet,  or  thirty-six  pounds  dry,  per  ton,  is  sadly  against  its  use." 
In  America,  straw  was  selected  as  a  successor  of  rags,  rather  than 
wood  pulp. 

FIRST   PULP-MILL   IN   MAINE   AND   A   MODERN    NEWS- 
PRINT MILL 

The  first  pulp-mill  in  Maine  was  the  beginning  of  a  large  paper  and 
newspaper  industry — an  industry  consuming  thousands  of  cords  of 
pulp  wood  a  year  and  producing  a  corresponding  number  of  tons  of 
paper.  There  is  as  great  a  difference  between  the  modern  mill  and 
the  neighboring  original  mill  at  Topsham  as  there  is  between  the 
water-power  that  furnishes  thousands  of  horse-power  at  the  big  plant 
and  that  of  the  little  stream  that  pursues  its  way  through  Brunswick 
and  Topsham.  Down  the  river,  near  the  modern  plant,  float  the  logs 
that  have  been  cut  during  the  preceding  winter  in  the  Maine  forests. 

22 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

Men  armed  with  poles  guide  the  logs  on  an  endless  carrier  that  takes 
them  into  the  mill,  where  they  are  sawed  into  lengths  by  means  of 
machinery  which  is  so  arranged  that  the  logs  come  in  contact  with 
each  other  and  are  peeled  and  passed  through  various  hands  for  in- 
spection before  they  travel  down  another  carrier  where  they  are 
washed  and  again  returned  to  the  river  preparatory  to  floating 
down  to  a  second  mill.  Every  precaution  is  taken  to  remove  knots 
and  dirt  and  the  resinous  bark  on  the  spruce  that  forms  the  larger 
proportion  of  the  pulp  wood.  Two  processes  follow,  the  sulphite  and 
the  ground  wood  processes.  The  sulphite  process  is  one  in  which  the 
wood,  after  being  cut  into  chips,  is  boiled  in  a  solution  of  sulphurous 
acid  and  lime  for  several  hours.  The  ground  wood  process  consists 
of  subjecting  two-foot  lengths  of  wood  to  a  grinding  action  whereby 
the  wood  is  pressed  against  grindstones  under  heavy  pressure  and  a 
stream  of  water  played  on  the  stone  to  carry  the  fibres  away  from  the 
stone  and  to  prevent  the  wood  from  being  scorched.  This  ground 
wood  pulp  is  then  run  through  the  wet  machine,  on  which  it  comes 
in  contact  with  the  first  felt  employed  in  paper-making.  This  felt 
is  more  or  less  coarsely  woven  in  order  to  filter  the  water  that  is 
squeezed  from  the  pulp  while  passing  between  heavy  rolls.  It  acts 
not  only  as  a  filter,  but  as  a  carrier  from  one  portion  of  the  machine 
to  another.  The  sheets  of  pulp  that  come  from  this  machine  are  then 
folded  and  laid  in  tiers,  where  they  await  mixture  with  the  pulp  that 
has  been  prepared  by  the  sulphite  process.  The  wood  pulp  forms 
eventually  the  body  of  the  paper,  while  the  sulphite  gives  the  strength. 

THE  BEATERS  AND  SIZING 

These  wood  fibres  are  then  passed  through  beaters,  in  order  to 
convert  them  into  the  finest  condition  for  forming  into  a  sheet  of 
finished  paper.  A  beater  is  a  tub  either  made  of  iron  or  wood  provided 
with  a  midfeather  and  backfall.  The  beater-roll  itself  is  located  in  one 
of  the  channels,  and  beats  and  mixes  the  stock  by  circulation  under  the 
beater-roll,  over  the  backfall,  and  around  through  the  channel  to  the 
beater-roll  again.  During  the  beating  process,  size  and  filler  are 
added, — in  the  case  of  news  paper  only  a  small  amount  of  size  being 
used,  as  the  paper  should  not  be  too  ink-resistant,  thus  causing  trouble 
in  running  it  off  on  the  machines.  The  small  amount  of  filler  added 
improves  the  printing  qualities  and  also  tends  to  improve  the  color 
of  the  finished  material.  The  fibres  suspended  in  a  quantity  of  water 

23 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

when  wrung  dry  show  a  substance  in  which  the  possibilities  of  finished 
paper  can  be  readily  seen.  The  evolution  that  follows  is  so  rapid  that 
the  human  eye  can  scarcely  follow  the  process. 

THE  FOURDRINIER  MACHINE 

In  an  incredibly  short  time  the  liquid  mass,  consisting  of  about  four 
per  cent,  fibre  and  ninety-six  per  cent,  water,  is  conveyed  to  the 
Fourdrinier  machine,  where  it  is  then  mixed  with  more  water  and  the 
consistency  reduced  to  approximately  i/io  to  2/10  of  fibre  to  99  9/10 
to  99  8/10  per  cent,  water.  From  a  feeder  head  box  at  one  end  it  is 
led  in  a  thin  milky  sheet  over  an  endless  wire  screen,  and  kept  from 
running  over  the  edges  by  the  rubber  deckle-straps.  So  fast  does  the 
operation  take  place  in  the  production  of  five  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
of  paper  a  minute  that  all  that  can  be  seen  of  the  mass  is  something 
that  resembles  a  thin  sheet  of  glass  that  moves  rapidly  forward  while 
the  fibre  is  shaken  sideways  and  is  separated  from  most  of  the  water 
by  the  Fourdrinier  wire. 

Before  the  wire  passes  underneath  the  couch-roll  it  passes  over  a 
series  of  suction-boxes  where  the  fibres  are  sucked  down  and  more 
firmly  interlocked  and  more  of  the  water  removed.  At  this  point  it 
might  be  well  to  say  that  the  stock  before  passing  under  the  couch-roll 
consists  of  approximately  thirty  per  cent,  fibre  and  seventy  per  cent. 
water.  After  passing  through  the  couch-roll  the  sheet  is  removed 
from  the  wire  and  placed  upon  a  felt  which  passes  between  two  rolls 
known  as  press-rolls,  the  number  of  presses  through  which  these  wet 
sheets  pass  depending  somewhat  on  the  grade  of  stock  being  manu- 
factured. From  the  last  press  the  sheet  is  conveyed  to  the  dryers, 
where  it  is  kept  in  close  touch  with  the  dryer  surface  by  means  of  a 
cotton  duck  dryer  felt.  The  felt  not  only  acts  as  a  carrier  for  the 
paper,  but  also  prevents  the  wet  sheet  from  cockling  when  it  is  brought 
in  sudden  contact  with  the  heater  surface  of  the  dryers.  The  paper 
after  passing  through  the  dryers  is  conveyed  to  a  stack  of  calenders, 
consisting  of  seven  or  more  rolls,  where  the  paper  is  passed  from  the 
top  of  the  stack  down  through  the  rolls  onto  the  reels.  From  the 
calenders  to  the  reels  the  sheets  are  trimmed  along  both  edges  and 
approximately  one  inch  of  the  deckle-edge  is  removed.  The  rolls  of 
paper  are  then  removed  and  cut  into  the  desired  size  rolls  for  large 
newspapers  or  sometimes  sheeted  when  they  are  to  be  used  for  pam- 
phlet and  small  newspaper  purposes. 

24 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

The  process  of  making  book  paper  is  much  the  same  as  that  just 
described.  Different  fillers  are  used,  among  the  most  common  being 
clay.  The  texture  of  the  felts  varies — as  it  does  for  all  grades  of  paper 
and  machines.  After  the  removal  of  the  reels  for  book  paper,  they 
are  taken  to  the  calender-rolls  where  various  finishes  are  given,  the 
finish  depending  on  the  number  of  chilled-iron  rolls  used.  The  coated 
papers  are  made  by  putting  the  rolls  onto  a  coating-machine  that 
brushes  the  paper  as  it  is  unwound  with  a  combination  of  casein, 
blanc  fixe,  and  coloring;  and  as  the  paper  is  unwound  it  is  carried  to 
dryers  and  hung  in  festoons  until  wound  on  the  roll  again.  The  roll 
is  again  run  through  calenders  to  obtain  an  extra  glazed  finish. 


CYLINDER  MACHINE 

Parallel  with  the  wonderful  development  of  the  Fourdrinier  machine 
has  been  that  of  the  cylinder  machine  from  its  earlier  form,  and  the 
paper  made  by  the  cylinder  process  serves  almost  a  greater  variety  of 
purposes  than  that  which  comes  from  the  Fourdrinier  machine.  From 
the  making  of  the  coarser  kinds  of  wrapping-paper  on  cylinder 
machines,  the  next  development  was  toward  a  larger  and  stronger 
variety  of  wrapping-papers.  Then,  by  the  addition  of  more  cylinder 
moulds  to  the  same  machine,  the  product  of  each  mould  being  taken  up 
by  one  or  more  felts  and  through  pressure  of  the  presses  being  formed 
into  a  single  composite  sheet,  this  making  of  a  single  sheet  of  several 
layers  made  possible  the  heavy  building-papers  and  roofing-papers  and 
the  heavy  boxboards  which  to-day  form  so  important  a  part  of  the 
product  of  the  paper  industry.  Every  day  a  larger  variety  of  uses 
is  developing  for  paper-board  boxes,  and  as  the  old  form  of  straw-paper 
wrapping  gave  way  to  that  of  the  stronger  and  more  serviceable  manila, 
so  the  wrapping  of  many  articles  of  merchandise  in  paper  wrappings 
has  given  way  to  the  use  of  boxes.  Now,  even  quite  heavy  freight 
shipments  are  sent  in  container  boxes  strongly  reinforced  by  pasting 
layers  of  boxboard  together  or  by  the  process  of  corrugating.  All  these 
new  forms  of  cylinder  papers,  however,  require  the  use  of  felts,  and  in 
fact  no  greater  test  of  the  felt  manufacturers'  capacity  for  improve- 
ment has  been  made  than  in  devising  felts  that  would  stand  the  tre- 
mendous strain  required  from  these  cylinder  machines  making  heavy 
papers.  Often  the  strength,  almost  equal  to  a  leather  belt,  must  be 
combined  with  an  openness  that  will  filter  water  freely  and  with  a  sur- 
face so  soft  that  the  pressure  of  threads  will  not  be  left  on  the  smooth 

26 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


PART  OF  MODERN  SINGLE-CYLINDER  MACHINE 
Showing  cylinder  mould,  felt,  and  press-rolls 

surface  of  the  board.  Cylinders  have  been  multiplying  until  the  old 
one-cylinder  machine  has  now  become  in  many  instances  a  great 
machine  of  seven  huge  cylinders,  sometimes  producing  as  much  as  one 
hundred  tons  of  board  in  twenty-four  hours.  Even  the  single-cylinder 
machine  which  is  still  being  used  for  making  a  very  great  variety  of 
light  papers  has  been  developed  marvellously  in  width,  in  speed,  and 
in  every  way  that  would  increase  its  capacity  and  efficiency. 


USES  OF  PAPER  MATERIAL  FOR  OTHER  PRODUCTS 

The  new  uses  of  paper  and  the  great  variety  produced,  especially  on 
cylinder  machines,  have  made  it  possible  to  utilize  a  large  amount  of 
fibre  that  had  previously  been  wasted.  Low-grade  wool  and  cotton 
rags,  old  paper  stock  of  all  kinds  from  the  finest  book  and  magazine 
to  the  coarsest  kinds  of  paper,  are  each  made  into  useful  and  service- 
able products  at  the  rate  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  tons  annually. 

28 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

The  collection  of  these  fibres  alone  has  become  an  enormous  in- 
dustry. 

This  is  not  a  treatise  on  paper-making,  the  only  desire  being  to  give 
sufficient  account  of  the  various  methods  of  paper  manufacture  to  indi- 
cate the  general  development  of  the  industry  and  the  corresponding 
necessity  for  a  similar  development  in  the  manufacture  of  paper- 
makers'  felts. 

The  advance,  then,  in  American  paper-making  for  the  past  half- 
century  is  measured  first  by  an  output  that  has  increased  many  fold, — 
an  advance  that  may  be  seen  in  the  great  paper-mills  of  the  Northern 
States,  in  the  enormous  consumption  of  wood  pulp,  in  the  utilization 
of  the  great  water-powers  of  the  North,  surpassing  anything  that  the 
original  mills  with  their  slowly  turning  water-wheels  or  the  later  mills 
run  by  steam  ever  dreamed  of.  To  enlarge  the  great  industry  master 
minds  have  perfected  machinery  and  equipped  great  plants,  Nature 
has  yielded  her  forests  and  power-producing  waters,  and  the  world  has 
been  the  beneficiary  of  all  these  productive  improvements. 


USE    OF    FELT    IN    PAPER-MAKING 

GREAT  STRIDES   IN  THE   INDUSTRY  AND   SOME 

INTERESTING    STATISTICS 

From  the  earliest  days  of  paper  manufacture  felts  of  pure  wool  have 
been  necessary  in  order  to  press  out  the  water  adhering  to  the  fibres. 
These  felts  in  the  early  days  were  pieces  of  woolen  cloth  cut  to  the 
size  of  the  "moulds."  In  the  hand-made  process  the  paper-maker  used 
a  wire  screen  or  mould  that  was  rectangular  in  shape  and  supported  by 
a  framework  of  wood.  A  shallow  frame  known  as  the  deckle  was 
placed  on  top  of  the  mould.  The  sheets  of  paper  were  formed  by 
dipping  the  mould  into  the  pulp,  the  workman  filling  it  even  with  the 
top  of  the  deckle,  where,  after  draining,  it  was  taken  off  in  sheets  and 
laid  between  pieces  of  felt  which  were  pressed  until  the  sheets  of  paper 
were  ready  to  be  dried  still  further  on  lines  or  poles. 

With  the  introduction  of  machinery  a  century  ago,  the  Fourdrinier 
and  cylinder  machines  were  equipped  with  sheets  of  felts  that  were 
made  into  belts  by  sewing  the  ends  together.  More  than  half  a 
century  elapsed  before  felts  were  joined  and  a  still  greater  time  before 
endless  felts  were  woven.  The  paper-makers'  felt  has  three  distinct 
functions:  first,  to  couch  the  paper,  or,  in  other  words,  to  pick  it  up 

29 


TWO     RELATED     INDUSTRIES 

from  the  cylinder  or  from  the  Fourdrinier  wire;  second,  to  act  as  a 
carrier  to  succeeding  parts  of  the  machine;  third,  to  act  as  a  filter, 
allowing  water  pressed  from  the  paper  to  pass  through  its  meshes  and 
run  away,  thus  aiding  the  drying  process.  The  durability  of  paper- 
makers'  felts  are  reckoned  either  on  the  days  run  or  the  number  of 
pounds  of  paper  made. 

PIONEER  COMPANIES 

For  nearly  half  a  century  after  the  introduction  of  Fourdrinier  and 
cylinder  machines  in  the  United  States  the  paper-makers'  felts  used  on 
these  machines  were  imported  from  Europe.  As  early  as  1854  Asa 
Shuler  of  Hamilton,  Ohio,  made  piece  felts  for  paper-makers,  and  on 
learning  from  an  Englishman  the  process  of  making  belts  of  felt,  Mr. 
Shuler  began  their  manufacture  about  twelve  years  later,  and  with  Mr. 
John  W.  Benninghofen  formed  the  firm  of  Shuler  and  Benninghofen. 

THE    BEGINNING    OF    THE    MANUFACTURE    OF    PAPER- 
MAKERS'  FELTS 

In  1864,  however,  a  group  of  enterprising  Americans,  among  whom 
were  Albert  Johnson,  Samuel  T.  Thomas,  Andrew  Fuller,  and  Charles 
C.  Newcomb,  established  a  new  business  on  this  continent  and  under 
the  name  of  Johnson,  Fuller  and  Company  began  to  manufacture  felts. 
They  leased  and  equipped  with  machinery,  which  they  gradually  per- 
fected, a  small  mill  at  Camden,  Maine;  and  so  successful  was  their 
venture  that  within  a  short  time  the  concern  became  a  stock  company 
and  the  name  was  changed  to  the  Knox  Woolen  Company,  under 
which  title  it  still  continues  to  do  business.  Another  of  the  four 
original  firms  of  paper-makers'  felts  was  F.  Gray  and  Company  of 
Piqua,  Ohio.  The  fourth  original  firm  was  that  of  H.  Waterbury  and 
Company  of  Rensselaerville,  New  York.  The  last-named  firm  was 
established  at  a  unique  period  in  the  history  of  American  paper-making 
— the  beginning  of  the  era  of  modern  paper  manufacture.  Twenty 
years,  however,  were  to  pass  before  the  great  impetus  took  place  that 
established  America  at  the  head  of  the  paper-producing  countries  of 
the  world. 

At  this  time  startling  discoveries  were  made  that  vanished  almost 
as  soon  as  they  were  talked  of.  In  this  eventful  year  1870  a  sensa- 
tion was  caused  by  as  simple  an  invention  as  a  paper  petticoat  that 

30 


#•.•;-_.    .:-.;-  :*^    !« 

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3  I 

— 

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TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

was  put  on  the  market  at  fifteen  cents  the  garment;  a  French  inventor 
claimed  at  this  time  that  he  could  cleanse  paper  so  that,  all  ink 
removed,  it  could  be  again  used  as  fresh  stock;  one  Jefferson  Evart 
patented  a  process  he  had  discovered  for  reducing  pulp  for  the  manu- 
facture of  coffins;  in  New  York  alone  rags  were  imported  to  the 
amount  of  104,661  bales  valued  at  $2,149,202;  of  the  one  hundred  and 
fifty-six  paper-mills  in  Holland  in  the  year  1870,  only  about  ten  made 
paper  by  machinery;  the  manufacture  of  paper  collars  in  Boston  during 
this  year  amounted  to  seventy-five  million;  there  were  six  hundred 
and  sixty-nine  paper-mills  in  the  United  States  at  this  time;  owing 
to  the  alarm  concerning  the  scarcity  of  paper  fibre  a  short  time  before 
this  eventful  1870,  fish  were  used  to  produce  pulp;  all  importation 
from  France  had  been  stopped  owing  to  the  war,  and  for  a  time  panic 
existed  in  America  because  many  of  the  great  paper-mills  closed  owing 
to  the  scarcity  of  water;  it  was  in  1870  that  the  Mobile  Register  was 
printed  on  paper  manufactured  from  the  okra  plant;  while  the  con- 
sumption of  esparto  had  risen  on  the  continent  to  one  hundred  thou- 
sand tons  a  year. 

SOME  PAPER  STATISTICS 

Four  years  after  H.  Waterbury  and  F.  C.  Huyck  began  to  manu- 
facture felts  at  Rensselaerville,  the  following  data  were  compiled  of 
the  number  of  mills  in  the  various  countries  where  hand-made  paper 
was  produced:  Africa,  i;  Austria,  130;  Belgium,  19;  Brazil,  n; 
Canada,  2;  Denmark,  5;  France,  404;  Germany,  423;  Great  Britain, 
273;  Holland,  no;  Italy,  97;  Norway  and  Sweden,  20;  Portugal,  16; 
Russia,  66;  Switzerland,  30;  Spain,  17;  United  States,  467. 

Various  experiments  were  still  carried  on.  Papyrus,  that  was 
believed  to  be  extinct,  was  cultivated  as  a  rare  plant  in  the  Kew 
Gardens  and  at  the  Royal  Society's  Gardens  in  London.  An  extraor- 
dinary attempt  was  made  by  E.  Waters  and  Son  of  Troy,  New 
York,  to  construct  a  canoe  of  paper  weighing  fifty-eight  pounds,  that 
was  destined  for  a  voyage  from  Albany  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  While 
the  paper  situation  of  1876  was  being  agitated,  one  Carl  Engel  made 
the  following  paper  estimate: — 

"Of  the  1,300,000,000  human  beings  inhabitating  the  globe, 
360,000,000  have  no  paper  or  writing  material  of  any  kind;  500,000,000 
of,  the  Mongolian  race  use  a  paper  made  from  the  stalks  and 
leaves  of  plants;  10,000,000  use  for  graphic  purposes  tablets  of  wood; 

32 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

130,000,000 — the  Persians,  Hindoos,  Armenians,  and  Syrians — have 
paper  made  from  cotton;  while  the  remaining  300,000,000  use  the 
ordinary  staple.  The  annual  consumption  of  this  latter  number  is  esti- 
mated at  1,800,000,000  pounds,  an  average  of  six  pounds  to  the  person, 
which  has  increased  from  two  and  two  and  a  half  pounds  during  the 
last  fifty  years.  To  produce  this  amount  of  paper  200,000,000  pounds 
of  woollen  rags,  besides  great  quantities  of  linen  rags,  straw,  wood,  and 
other  materials  are  yearly  consumed.  The  paper  is  manufactured 
in  2,960  mills,  employing  90,000  male  and  180,000  female  laborers." 


SMALL   AMERICAN   PAPER-MACHINE 

Installed  at  the  Japanese  Imperial  Government  Paper-Mill  in  1878  and  still  running, 
machines  have  since  been  installed 


Modern 


33 


THE  MILL  AT  RENSSELAERVILLE 

Where  Francis  Conkling  Huyck  started  the  manufacture  of  paper-makers'  felts  in  1870 


FOUNDING  THE    KENWOOD   MILLS 

A  attempt  has  been  made  in  the  last  few  pages  to  present  the 
:hanging  conditions  that  existed  at  the  time  of  the  founding  of 
Messrs.  Waterbury  and  Huyck's  mill  in  1870  on  the  little 
stream  that  tumbles  down  from  the  hills  and  pursues  its  way 
through  the  village  of  Rensselaerville,  New  York.  That  mill  and 
stream  are  illustrative  of  the  size  of  the  woolen-  and  paper-mills  of  that 
day.  Fifty  years  ago  there  were  no  big  pulp-  and  paper-mills  bor- 
dering the  forests,  and  modern  engineering  feats  were  undreamed  of. 
Mr.  Henry  Waterbury  had  come  to  Rensselaerville  from  Schoharie  to 
take  up  the  manufacture  of  woolen  cloth  in  the  woolen-mill  that  had 
been  built  at  the  upper  end  of  the  little  village  in  the  early  part  of  the 
century.  This  mill  had  replaced  one  erected  in  1794  on  the  same  site, 
the  purpose  of  which  had  been  to  receive  wool  from  neighboring  farm- 
ers, carding  it  into  shape  called  rolls,  which  were  then  returned  to  the 
farmers  to  be  spun  into  yarn  and  woven  into  cloth.  This  cloth  was 
again  sent  to  the  mill  to  be  felted  or  fulled  and  finished,  after  which  it 
was  returned  to  the  owners  and  made  into  the  families'  clothing.  Even 
after  Mr.  Waterbury  was  operating  the  mill,  rolls  were  still  made  for 
the  farmers,  though  the  yarn  spun  from  them  was  then  usually  used 
for  knitting  stockings.  Mr.  Waterbury  discovered  the  use  of  paper- 
makers'  felts  and  the  method  of  making  them,  and  especially  the  secret 
of  joining  them,  which  was  most  important  of  all.  He  believed  there 
was  a  future  in  this  new  industry  and  proposed  to  Mr.  Huyck  that  he 
should  join  him  in  the  effort  to  manufacture  paper-makers'  felts.  Mr. 
Huyck's  friends  tried  to  persuade  him  not  to  venture  on  a  field  so  new 
and  precarious,  but  he  too  had  faith  in  the  new  enterprise  and  decided 
to  take  the  risk.  At  the  time  when  it  was  proposed  that  he  enter  the 
manufacturing  world  he  was  in  business  with  his  father,  in  a  general 
country  store  at  Rensselaerville.  His  assets,  when  he  definitely  decided 
to  enter  business  with  Mr.  Waterbury,  were  a  small  amount  of  capital, 

35 


TWO     RELATED     INDUSTRIES 

the  ability  of  a  good  salesman,  and  a  gift  of  business  vision  which  in 
later  years  proved  very  valuable  when  he  came  to  establish  the  modern 
plant  at  Albany.  It  must  not  be  imagined  that  Mr.  Huyck  took  the 
step  rashly.  He  prepared  himself  well  for  it  by  going  about  among 
many  of  the  paper-mills  and  making  inquiries  concerning  the  use  of 
felts,  where  the  felts  were  bought,  how  much  was  paid  for  them.  Of 
weaving  he  knew  little,  but  his  knowledge  of  selling  and  of  business 
possibilities  was  comprehensive  and  accurate.  There  are  few  mills 
such  as  Mr.  Huyck  visited  remaining  in  New  York,  or  probably  in 
the  United  States.  A  typical  mill — indeed  a  mill  that  was  undoubtedly 
visited  by  Mr.  Huyck — is  the  Centennial  Mill  at  Valatie,  New  York, 
where  for  more  than  half  a  century  straw  wrapping-paper  has  been 
made.  A  description  is  not  uninteresting. 


A   TYPICAL   STRAW-PAPER   MILL   OF   THE   TIME 

The  Centennial  Mill  is  unique  and  picturesque,  its  red  brick  walls 
sloping  down  to  the  little  stream  that  supplies  its  power.  Pyramids 
of  straw  await  conveyance  to  the  deep  old  vats  which  are  fitted  with 
steam-pipes  to  keep  the  straw  at  a  given  temperature  during  the  eight 
or  ten  hours  that  are  consumed  in  the  cooking.  The  beaters  on  a  lower 
floor  prepare  the  straw  for  entrance  to  the  cylinder  machine  that 


CENTENNIAL  MILL,  VALATIE,  NEW  YORK 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

travels  at  about  one  hundred  feet  a  minute  and  turns  off  the  crisp 
brown  sheets  of  wrapping-paper  that  at  one  time  formed  the  only 
wrapping-paper  in  use.  Mr.  Huyck's  interest  in  this  mill  may  have 
arisen  not  only  from  the  information  he  desired  to  glean  concerning 
felts,  but  from  the  fact  that  at  his  father's  store  many  and  many  a 
time  had  he  done  up  groceries  in  that  sort  of  wrapping-paper,  no 
paper  bags  being  then  in  use. 

F.    C.    HUYCK    ENTERS    BUSINESS 

As  a  partner  in  the  firm  of  H.  Waterbury  and  Company,  Mr.  Huyck 
entered  the  business.  For  eight  years,  from  1870  to  1878,  the  struggle 
followed  to  put  their  paper-makers'  felts  on  the  market.  The  com- 
pany was  handicapped  in  innumerable  ways.  They  were  short  of 
help,  a  long  distance  from  a  railroad,  and  they  were  selling  a  new 
product.  Much  labor  was  expended  in  conveying  the  felts,  after  they 
were  woven,  to  women  along  the  countryside,  that  they  might  join  the 
felts  and  return  them  to  the  mill  for  washing  and  fulling  and  finishing. 
After  eight  years  of  constant  effort  Mr.  Waterbury  decided  to  remove 
to  another  part  of  the  State,  and  was  more  or  less  astonished  when, 
on  stating  his  expectancy  of  Mr.  Huyck's  accompanying  him,  the 
latter  said  that  he  intended  going  to  Albany  to  start  a  plant  of  his 
own  for  the  manufacture  of  paper-makers'  felts.  He  rented  a  mill  at 
Kenwood,  a  suburb  two  miles  from  the  centre  of  Albany,  and  began 
manufacturing  in  1879. 

Mr.  Waterbury,  in  pursuance  of  his  plan,  established  at  Oriskany, 
New  York,  the  firm  of  H.  Waterbury  and  Sons.  From  time  to  time 
many  enlargements  of  the  original  plant  have  taken  place,  and  the 
firm  of  H.  Waterbury  and  Sons  Company  is  to-day  one  of  the  eleven 
important  plants  manufacturing  paper-makers'  felts.  A  few  years  ago 
two  of  Mr.  Waterbury's  sons  and  their  associates  established  a  new 
plant  at  Skaneateles  Falls,  New  York,  the  Waterbury  Felt  Company. 

The  F.  Gray  Company  through  reorganization  became  the  Orr  Felt 
and  Blanket  Company,  which  is  still  located  at  Piqua,  Ohio.  In  1895, 
the  Albany  Felt  Company,  Albany,  New  York,  was  formed  by  Mr. 
Parker  Corning  and  Mr.  James  W.  Cox,  with  Mr.  D.  M.  Fuller  as 
superintendent.  The  Appleton  Woolen  Mills  of  Appleton,  Wisconsin, 
centre  of  a  great  paper-manufacturing  district,  decided  to  take  up  the 
manufacture  of  paper-makers'  felts  and  joined  the  number  already 
in  the  industry.  Draper  Brothers  of  Canton,  Massachusetts,  an  old 

37 


*  THE  TEN  MILE  CREEK,  RENSSELAERVILLE 

Which  supplied  the  power  to  the  woolen-mill 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

established  firm  of  woolen  manufacturers,  likewise  entered  into  the 
business  somewhat  later.  The  Lockport  Felt  Company  of  Newfane, 
New  York,  was  formed  to  manufacture  paper-makers'  felts,  as  was  the 
Philadelphia  Felt  Manufacturing  Company,  both  these  concerns  con- 
tinuing at  the  present  time  in  the  industry.  Several  other  plants 
were  launched  in  the  manufacture  of  paper-makers'  felts,  but  for  one 
cause  or  another  have  discontinued,  and  those  above  mentioned  with 
the  original  firms  of  Knox  Woolen  Company,  Shuler  and  Benning- 
hofen,  and  the  firm  of  F.  C.  Huyck  and  Sons,  who  are  the  successors 
to  the  business  founded  by  Mr.  Francis  Conkling  Huyck,  are  the  eleven 
successful  and  important  concerns  now  engaged  in  the  manufacture 
of  paper-makers'  felts. 

THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  KENWOOD  PLANT 

Mr.  Huyck  while  engaged  in  business  in  Kenwood  took  into  part- 
nership Mr.  Chauncey  Argersinger,  and  the  firm  of  Huyck  and  Arger- 
singer  was  formed.  They  were  fortunate  in  securing  as  superintend- 
ents Mr.  Andrew  Fuller,  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Knox  Woolen 
Company,  and  his  son,  Mr.  Duncan  M.  Fuller. 

The  period  at  Kenwood  was  one  of  successful  development,  lasting 
from  1879  to  1894.  The  mill  rented  by  Mr.  Huyck  had  been  a  knit- 
ting-mill. There  were  some  cards  and  a  few  spinning-machines  of  the 
type  that  marked  the  period  between  the  hand-type  of  spinning- 
machines  and  the  self-operating  type.  These  were  used  for  a  number 
of  years.  The  period  at  Kenwood  covered  the  change  from  the  slow- 
running  methods  of  making  paper  to  the  fast  machines.  It  also 
marked  the  transference  of  newspaper  plants  to  the  edges  of  the 
forests;  it  also  marked  the  shifting  of  the  centre  of  the  industry  to 
the  Middle  States,  to  Maine,  and  to  Canada.  Changes  also  occurred 
in  the  manufacture  of  felts.  As  the  machines  became  wider  the  neces- 
sity for  wide  looms  and  wider  finishing-machines  grew.  The  extreme 
growth  in  the  width  of  machines  took  place  later.  The  speed  of  paper- 
machines  during  this  period  increased  from  one  hundred  and  twenty 
to  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  a  minute. 

NUMBER  OF  PAPER-MILLS 

At  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  the  plant  at  Kenwood  the 
number  of  paper-mills,  according  to  Lockwood's  Directory  of  the 
Paper  Trade,  in  the  United  States  was  reckoned  at  nine  hundred  and 

39 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

thirty-four,  the  number  of  firms  at  seven  hundred  and  ninety-five.  Of 
these  two  hundred  and  fifty-four  firms  and  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  mills  were  located  in  the  Eastern  States,  three  hundred  and 
twenty-eight  firms  and  three  hundred  and  sixty  mills  in  the  Middle 
States,  one  hundred  and  fifty-five  firms  and  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
nine  mills  in  the  Western  States,  and  fifty-eight  firms  and  sixty-eight 
mills  in  the  Southern  States.  At  this  time  many  associations  were 
being  formed  by  those  active  in  the  paper  trade,  and  the  first  of  these 
was  brought  together  in  1878  and  named  the  American  Paper  Manu- 
facturers' Association.  This  organization  grew  out  of  a  convention  in 
that  year,  the  name  being  eventually  changed  to  the  American  Paper 
and  Pulp  Association,  which  included  on  its  membership  list  all  of  the 
men  actively  interested  in  the  paper  trade  who  thus  joined  together  to 
establish  prices  and  keep  in  touch  with  the  market.  The  first  Ameri- 
can paper  trade  journal  had  been  established  in  1872.  It  was  called 
The  Paper  Trade  Journal  and  was  founded  by  Mr.  Howard  Lockwood. 

PLANT  AT  KENWOOD  BURNED  MAY  4,  1894,  AND 
REMOVAL  TO  RENSSELAER 

The  second  epoch  ended,  and  the  third  in  the  history  of  the  Ken- 
wood plant  began  on  May  4,  1894,  when  the  entire  mill  was  destroyed 
by  fire.  Scarcely  had  the  ruins  crumbled  to  ashes  when  a  new  site — 
the  present  one — was  selected  at  Rensselaer  across  the  Hudson  River 
from  Albany.  The  new  plant  was  completed,  equipped  with  machin- 
ery, and  started  on  October  i6th  of  the  same  year.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  Mr.  Argersinger,  the  partner  of  Mr.  Huyck,  retired  from 
the  business.  Mr.  Huyck  then  formed  a  partnership  with  his  sons, 
Edmund  N.  Huyck,  John  N.  Huyck,  and  two  years  later  Francis  C. 
Huyck,  a  third  son,  under  the  firm  name  of  F.  C.  Huyck  and  Sons. 
The  name  of  Kenwood  Mills  that  designated  the  felts,  and  had  been 
taken  from  the  former  location  of  the  plant,  was  retained  and  has 
been  used  ever  since  to  distinguish  the  products  made  by  the  firm. 

Under  the  guidance  of  Mr.  F.  C.  Huyck,  during  the  next  ten  years, 
the  plant  grew  rapidly.  The  prophetic  vision  of  his  youth  remained 
undimmed,  and  he  was  constantly  on  the  alert  for  new  methods  and 
new  machinery.  His  undaunted  belief  in  the  future  of  the  felt-making 
industry  served  as  an  inspiration  in  everything  that  he  undertook. 
An- English  writer  has  said  of  Mr.  Huyck:  "If  a  new  and  improved 
machine  was  invented,  he  bought  it  at  once.  If  new  conditions  arose 

40 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

in  paper  manufacture,  he  was  eager  to  meet  them.  He  always  felt 
that  his  business  deserved  the  best  machinery  and  best  methods,  and 
demanded  of  his  sons  and  of  all  those  associated  with  him  that  these 
be  secured  and  adopted.  For  example,  once  when  travelling  in  Eng- 
land he  learned  that  raising  or  napping  machines  with  revolving 
teasels  had  recently  been  invented.  On  his  return  he  at  once  induced 
a  manufacturer  of  textile  machinery  to  make  these  improved  machines 
and  replaced  all  of  the  old  style.  At  another  time  he  learned  while  in 
Europe  that  a  loom  had  been  designed  and  perfected  for  weaving  felts 
seamless.  Before  his  return  he  had  ordered  several  of  these  looms  for 
trial.  They  were  so  successful  that  Mr.  Huyck  sent  one  of  his  sons 
to  purchase  more  looms  and  secure  their  exclusive  use  in  the  United 
States.  This  was  accomplished,  and  I  found  the  mill  equipped  with  a 
large  number  of  these  looms  all  weaving  seamless  felts.  I  was  in- 
formed that  the  growing  demand  for  their  seamless  felts  is  remarkable. 
On  high-speed  machines,  felts  must  often  be  strained  very  tight  to 
keep  them  open  and,  as  is  well  known,  a  hand  seam  is  the  first  point 
in  a  felt  to  give  way.  In  seamless  felts  this  weakness  is  entirely  elim- 
inated." 


PRESENT  OFFICERS 

Francis  Conkling  Huyck's  death  occurred  on  July  4,  1907,  after  he 
had  established  a  business  that  was  known  on  both  continents.  The 
company  was  shortly  afterward  incorporated,  the  eldest  son,  Edmund 
Niles  Huyck,  being  made  president;  John  Niles  Huyck,  the  second  son, 
vice-president  and  secretary;  while  the  youngest  son,  Francis  Conkling 
Huyck,  was  made  treasurer.  John  Niles  Huyck  died  October  31,  1914. 
The  sons  endeavored  to  the  best  of  their  ability  to  continue  the  policies 
of  their  father  and  to  maintain  the  standards  that  he  set  for  progressive 
development. 

This  is  not  a  story  of  individuals  or  individual  achievements.  Aside 
from  the  facts  which  it  has  seemed  fitting  to  write  of  the  founder, 
it  is  the  story  of  the  growth  and  development  of  a  business.  Its 
success  and  the  importance  it  has  attained  in  the  industry  are  the 
result  of  the  efforts  of  hundreds  of  men  and  women  working  through  all 
these  years  in  harmony  and  with  a  spirit  of  co-operation.  Steadily  the 
number  of  workers  has  been  increased,  foremen  have  been  engaged 
or  promoted;  skilled  accountants,  men  trained  technically  in  this 
textile  industry,  salesmen  of  high  character  and  ability,  and  executives 

42 


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TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

of  wide  experience  have  joined  the  organization  and  are  to-day  inspired 
by  the  same  ideals  of  progress  and  service. 

The  gradual  exhaustion  of  the  wood  supply  in  the  United  States 
has  made  it  necessary  to  build  more  and  more  paper-mills,  that  the 
increased  demand  for  newsprint  paper  may  be  met,  and  these  mills 
are  growing  rapidly  in  Canada  on  the  various  waterways  that  exist 
from  Newfoundland  to  British  Columbia  on  the  edges  of  the  great 
spruce  forests.  Canada  is  therefore  constantly  becoming  a  much 
more  important  paper-manufacturing  country  and  is  destined  to  supply 
a  large  part  of  the  world's  supply  of  paper  made  from  wood.  In 
1918  F.  C.  Huyck  and  Sons  decided  to  establish  a  plant  in  Canada.  A 
mill  was  procured  at  Arnprior,  Ontario,  thirty-eight  miles  west  of 
Ottawa,  on  the  line  of  the  Grand  Trunk  and  Canadian  Pacific.  The 
mill  had  been  built  for  making  felts.  The  owners  were  willing  to  sell 
this  plant  and  it  was  purchased  in  July,  1918.  An  addition  was  im- 
mediately started  and  machinery  purchased,  and  now  at  this  plant  is 
made  the  same  quality  of  felts  as  in  Albany.  The  addition  was  com- 
pleted late  last  year  and  another  addition  is  now  being  constructed 
for  extra  space  that  is  already  needed.  The  Canadian  plant  is  incor- 
porated under  the  name  of  Kenwood  Mills,  Limited. 

A  STORY  OF  WOOL  AND  THE  FIRST  KENWOOD  PROCESSES 

Wool  comes  to  the  Kenwood  plant  at  Rensselaer  from  all  over  the 
world.  The  storehouses  in  which  this  wool  is  stored  in  bales  are  near 
the  main  line  of  the  New  York  Central  Railroad,  from  which  a  side- 
track has  been  built  that  leads  direct  to  the  plant.  Order  and  capacity 
are  the  most  impressive  features  of  these  storehouses  which  the  world 
supplies,  and  which,  in  turn,  give  out  the  wealth  of  their  stores  to 
supply  the  wool-room. 

The  wool-room  is  the  most  cosmopolitan  part  of  the  plant.  Not 
cosmopolitan  in  the  sense  of  race — for  nearly  all  of  the  assorters  are 
men  who  originally  worked  in  English  mills  and  who  came  to  America 
years  ago.  Many  of  them  are  men  who  breathed  the  fresh  air  of 
English  hillsides  until  the  mills  of  England  claimed  them.  Their 
school  has  been  the  school  of  experience  and  their  principal  qualifica- 
tions as  assorters  are  experience  and  good  eyesight. 

"They  must  be  capable,"  says  their  foreman,  "of  sorting  both  fleeces 
arid  badly  graded  pulled  wool;  they  must  be  able  to  make  as  many 
sorts  as  are  required — sometimes  five  or  six  from  a  single  fleece;  they 

44 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


PILE  OF  WOOL 


must  judge  the  differences,  not  only  by  length  of  fibre  but  by  size  of 
fibre." 

But  in  the  many  countries  of  the  earth  from  which  the  wool  is  im- 
ported, the  cosmopolitan  qualities  of  the  wool-room  are  unmistakably 
shown.  Since  a  flock  of  domestic  sheep  cannot  be  depended  on  for 
the  manufacture  of  felts,  it  is  necessary  to  draw  from  many  places 
in  order  that  there  may  be  secured  texture  and  length  of  fibre.  If  a 
botanist  were  to  go  into  this  wool-room  he  would  in  most  cases  be 
able  to  tell  exactly  from  what  country  various  fleeces  had  been 
brought,  for  these  fleeces  come  to  the  mill  with  the  burrs  of  their  native 
lands  clinging  to  the  wool  fibres. 

WHERE   THE   WOOL   COMES   FROM 

One  man  picks  up  a  fleece  and  after  examining  it  says:  — 
"Oh,  yes,  Australian  wool.     We  call  her  the  'Land  of  the  Golden 
Fleece.'     She  pastures  a  hundred  million  sheep  and  produces  annually 
more  wool  than  any  other  country  in  the  world.     Here  are  burrs  and 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

vegetation  of  the  wide,  dry  pastures  of  Australia  clinging  to  this  fleece. 
In  this  vegetation  there  is  a  quality — the  character  of  which  you  can  see 
somewhat  from  these  dry  shreds  that  still  cling  to  the  wool — that  acts 
as  the  Trent  does  on  Bass'  Ale.  That  is  why  the  country  has  the  repu- 
tation of  producing  the  finest  wool  in  the  world.  You  know,  I  sup- 
pose, the  story  of  how  sheep  were  first  raised  in  Australia?  No? 
Well,  the  pastoral  industry  was  founded  by  Captain  John  M'Arthur, 
who  was  connected  in  some  official  capacity  with  the  convict  station  at 
Fort  Jackson.  While  there,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  raising  sheep  in 
New  South  Wales  which  he  considered  well  adapted  to  the  purpose. 
He  couldn't  get  merinos  from  Spain,  for  their  exportation  was  forbid- 
den, so  he  procured  half-bred  merinos,  and  from  the  Cape  he  man- 
aged to  get  three  Spanish  rams  and  five  ewes.  By  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century  his  flock  had  increased  to  nearly  seven  thousand 
sheep.  It  was  during  the  Peninsular  War  that  the  King  of  Spain 
presented  George  III  with  a  small  flock  of  selected  Spanish  sheep,  and 
in  some  way  M'Arthur  procured  a  ram  and  ewe  from  this  royal  flock 
at  Windsor,  and  carried  them  back  to  Australia.  These,  then,  with 
those  shipped  from  the  Cape  are  the  ancestors  of  the  great  flock  in 
Australia  to-day  that  supply  us  with  millions  of  pounds  of  wool." 


FLOCKS  OF  ARGENTINE 

In  the  wool-room  at  the  plant,  besides  Australian  fleeces  there  are 
fleeces  from  Canada,  England,  Scotland,  South  Africa,  South  America, 
and  the  United  States. 

"This  burr,"  we  are  told,  "that  resembles  a  groundhog  with  long 
horns,  came  from  one  of  the  Argentine  fleeces  where  one  hundred 
million  sheep  graze  and  where  if  this  number  were  divided  equally 
every  one  in  that  republic  would  own  one  hundred  sheep.  There  was 
grass  also  clinging  to  the  wool.  Other  fleeces  were  from  the  Falkland 
Islands,  where  on  nearly  two  million  and  a  half  acres  of  pasturage 
graze  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  the  finest  sheep  in  the 
world." 

Vegetation,  we  learn,  in  the  Falklands  is  very  luxuriant,  but  there 
are  no  trees.  The  winds  there  do  not  permit  them  to  grow.  It  is 
said  that  the  king  of  the  Falklands  has  one  aim  in  life  and  that  is  to 
raise  a  tree.  The  pasturage,  however,  is  excellent  for  sheep-raising. 

Literally,  then,  the  world  contributes  to  the  wool-room  at  the  Ken- 
wood Mills.  After  being  sorted  on  tables  by  workmen  equipped  with 

47 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


WOOL-ASSORTING  DEPARTMENT 


large  shears,  the  wool  is  graded — sometimes  five  and  six  grades  to  a 
single  fleece — and  then  blended  in  order  to  produce  a  given  texture. 
It  may  here  be  said  that  every  process  through  which  the  wool  passes 
up  to  the  production  of  the  finished  paper-makers'  felts  and  jackets  is 
a  process  that  combines  with  its  own  essentials  that  of  removing  dirt 
and  dust.  In  the  wool-room  the  assorters  while  going  over  the  fleeces 
and  wool  fibres  remove  dirt,  vegetation,  and  strings.  Much  of  the 
dust  while  handling  the  wool  sifts  through  the  screens  placed  across  the 
work-benches. 

VARIOUS  PROCESSES 

A  duster  that  resembles  the  funnel  of  a  steamship  next  receives  the 
wool  and  by  passing  it  over  rolls  with  spiked  teeth  prepares  it  for 
the  very  important  process  known  as  scouring.  Careful  judgment 
and  skilful  attention  are  required  in  this  process.  And  since  the  water 
of  the  Hudson  River  is  too  "hard"  for  wool-washing,  it  is  given  the 
necessary  softness  that  it  lacks,  by  the  Permutit  System  which  has 
been  installed  in  the  plant.  The  object  of  scouring  the  wool  is  to 

48 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

remove  impurities  that  are  in  the  wool  and  also  to  open  it  up  so  that  it 
is  prepared  for  the  subsequent  process  of  carding. 

The  swing-rake  machine  that  performs  this  process  resembles  a 
huge  tank  into  which  are  suspended  rakes  with  teeth  of  varying  lengths 
that  slowly  separate  the  wool  and  free  it  from  dirt  and  dust.  This 
swing-rake  machine  was  suggested  by  the  original  method  of  handling 
this  process.  At  first  a  man  stood  at  the  vat  and  tossed  about  with  a 
pitchfork  the  wool  in  the  vat  so  that  it  was  thoroughly  treated.  To 
the  inventor,  from  watching  this,  came  the  idea  of  attaching  the 
prongs  of  a  swinging  rake.  From  the  first  tank  the  wool  is  passed  to 
a  second  tank  containing  a  semi-wash,  and  then  is  gradually  moved 
forward  to  a  third  tank,  where  the  wool  is  rinsed  before  the  water  is 
squeezed  out  by  rollers.  Thence  it  is  conveyed  to  the  wool-drying 
machine  that  resembles  an  iron  house,  where  a  series  of  fans  blow  hot 
air  through  the  wool  as  it  passes  through  the  dryer  on  an  endless  wire 
apron.  It  is  then  blown  by  another  fan  to  the  various  bins  in  the  wool- 
room  on  the  third  floor.  From  these  bins  various  kinds  of  wool  are 
selected  and  blended  preparatory  to  the  carding  process. 


CARDING  THE  WOOL  FOR  SPINNING 

As  we  have  followed  the  wool  from  the  great  bales  piled  in  the 
storehouse  to  the  wool-assorting  room,  through  the  scouring  and  dry- 
ing processes  to  the  wool-storage  bins  where  it  awaits  transportation 
to  the  carding  department,  let  us  proceed  through  the  mill.  Rousseau 
once  said  that  "y°u  require  much  philosophy  to  observe  accurately 
things  that  are  under  your  noses,"  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  this  remark 
is  nowhere  more  applicable  than  when  for  the  first  time  a  novice 
watches  the  operation  of  a  carding-machine.  Even  so,  intricate  as 
it  is,  the  action  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  hand-cards  that  in 
many  places  were  in  use  within  the  present  century,  and  have  now 
practically  disappeared  save  perhaps  among  the  Navajo  Indians, 
who  in  making  their  rugs  still  use  the  hand-cards  and  practise  hand- 
spinning. 

The  old-fashioned  carding  was  done  by  two  pieces  of  wood  covered 
with  card-cloth  of  a  thin  leather  to  which  were  attached  fine  wire 
points.  The  cards  were  provided  with  handles,  and  the  process  of 
straightening  the  wool  fibres  and  equalizing  their  length  was  accom- 
plished by  drawing  these  cards  over  each  other  until  the  wool  was 
torn  open  and  blended  by  the  wire  teeth.  After  the  wool  was  thor- 

49 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

oughly  combed  the  cards  were  rolled  over  each  other  in  order  to  make 
the  wool  into  a  roll  or  what  is  now  known  as  roving. 

This  is  exactly  what  a  great  modern  machine  does,  the  whole  process 
as  with  the  hand-cards  being  one  of  carding  and  stripping  or  hooking 
and  unhooking  the  wool  fibres. 

SPACIOUSNESS,   LIGHTNESS,  AND  AIRINESS   OF   THE 
KENWOOD  CARDING-ROOMS 

The  carding-rooms  at  the  Kenwood  plant  are  among  the  finest  to 
be  found  in  the  entire  mill.  The  rooms  are  very  light,  nearly  all  of 
the  wall-space  being  given  over  to  windows.  The  ceilings  and  walls 
are  white,  and  in  convenient  spaces  where  the  workmen  can  readily 
reach  them  are  large  steel  lockers,  each  man  having  one  of  his  own 
for  clothing  or  anything  that  he  may  wish  to  keep  there.  The  ma- 
chinery is  the  latest  designed  for  carding,  and  most  of  it  was  built 
under  special  directions  for  the  work  that  the  plant  wishes  performed. 
There  was  a  long  period  of  invention  and  development  and  perfecting 
between  the  original  hand-card — the  early  attempts  of  a  Kay  or  Paul, 
a  Crompton  or  an  Earl,  who  either  invented  or  perfected — and  these 
huge  Kenwood  machines  which  give  one  the  impression  of  a  bustling 
woman  who,  intent  upon  her  task,  systematically  goes  about  the  con- 
version of  fluffy,  newly  washed  wool  into  the  roving  that  is  wound  on 
spools  and  made  ready  for  the  spinning-rooms.  In  the  beauty  of  the 
machines  themselves  one  might  almost  fancy  that  a  woman's  touch 
was  apparent, — in  the  immaculate  condition  in  which  they  are  kept, 
their  brightness,  the  exactitude  of  their  movements,  and  the  unerring 
stroke  as  they  handle  the  wool  fibres.  The  wool  is  combed  with  far 
greater  nicety  than  it  could  ever  be  combed  by  hand. 

INGENUITY   OF   MACHINE-CARDING 

At  the  back  of  each  machine  is  an  automatic  feeder  in  which  the  wool 
is  placed  by  the  feed-tender.  As  the  wool  is  received  by  the  feed- 
rollers  that  act  very  much  as  a  spool  does  when  strands  of  hair  are 
wound  around  it,  they  in  turn  pass  the  wool  with  a  rolling  motion 
along  to  what  is  known  as  the  first  breaker,  where  the  carding  actually 
commences.  The  action  here,  as  has  already  been  said,  is  that  of  a 
hand-card  on  a  colossal  scale.  Where  the  hand-card  had  card-cloth  on 
which  were  fastened  wire  teeth,  the  modern  carding-machine  has  huge 
rolls  on  which  are  thousands  of  wire  teeth  that  at  one  time  or  another 

51 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

perform  the  task  of  seizing  the  fibres  presented  them  and  tearing  the 
wool  apart  or  straightening  it,  as  the  case  may  be.  Here  the  worker, 
or  top  roll,  performs  the  work  of  the  upper  hand-card,  while  the  lower 
roll,  or  cylinder,  takes  the  place  of  the  bottom  card.  This  process  em- 
ploys not  only  one  set  of  rolls  and  cylinders,  but  several — the  main 
cylinder  in  every  case  being  the  heaviest  worker,  acting  not  only  as  a 
bottom  card  for  every  roll,  but  performing  besides  the  duties  of  carrier 
as  the  wool  is  conveyed  from  one  roll  to  another. 

The  process  through  which  the  carded  wool  is  passed  before  its  final 
preparation  for  spinning  takes  the  place  of  the  rolling  motion  that  the 
hand-carders  used  when  they  wished  to  make  the  wool  into  a  roving. 
The  roving  that  is  gathered  automatically  from  the  cards  resembles 
a  fluffy  white  festoon.  This  is  separated  into  smaller  strands  and 
wound  on  spools  preparatory  to  its  transmission  to  the  spinning  de- 
partment. 

DAME  GOODMAN'S   SURPRISE 

If  the  good  housewives  of  the  American  colonies  might  step  out  of 
the  past  and  visit  these  vast  carding-rooms  at  the  plant,  well  might 
they  exclaim  over  the  ease  and  precision  of  machines  and  the  men 
operating  them,  and  over  the  intermediary  process  of  converting  mill- 
ions of  pounds  of  wool  from  its  natural  condition  on  the  sheep's 
fleece  to  the  finished  paper-makers'  felts.  Probably  they  would  linger 
longest  in  the  carding-room,  for  here  the  advance  in  machinery  has 
been  greatest,  and  the  imitation  of  human  dexterity  the  most  perfectly 
reproduced. 

A  GLANCE  AT  THE   PAST  OF   CARDING 

In  dwelling  on  the  mechanical  part  of  wool-carding,  it  is  well  to 
remember  the  story  of  wool-cards.  The  father  of  carding  wool  by 
machinery  appears  to  have  been  Lewis  Paul,  an  Englishman,  who  in 
1748,  it  is  said,  was  the  "patentee  of  the  invention  of  revolving  cylin- 
ders for  carding  cotton."  "This  machine,"  continues  A  Memoir  of 
Samuel  Crompton,  "is  the  original  of  the  machine  for  carding  now 
used."  Crompton  himself  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  later  in- 
vented a  carding-machine  that  did  not  prove  practical.  It  remained 
for  Pliny  Earl,  an  employee  of  Samuel  Slater,  who  introduced  the 
Arkwright  machines  in  America,  to  perfect  cards  that  were  supplied 
with  power  by  a  water-wheel  attended  by  one  Samuel  Brunius  Jenks, 
a<  negro  belonging  to  the  Slater  establishment  in  Rhode  Island.  The 
story  is  told  of  Slater's  trouble  with  his  water-wheel  that  in  winter 

52 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

froze  every  night,  and  Slater,  who  could  find  no  one  willing  to  endure 
the  temperature  of  the  water  to  break  the  ice,  was  obliged  to  rise 
from  two  to  three  hours  before  breakfast  in  order  to  prepare  for  the 
day's  work. 

AMERICAN  AND  ENGLISH  EFFORTS  TO  PERFECT 

CARDING 

At  Philadelphia,  which  has  long  been  a  textile  machinery  centre, 
Oliver  Evans  in  1777  made  teeth  for  cards,  and  the  inventions  that  he 
perfected  were  rapidly  taken  up  by  various  concerns.  In  less  than 
twenty  years  carding-machines  were  made  in  considerable  numbers, 
and  perfected  and  enlarged  here  and  abroad.  The  first  practical  addi- 
tion to  Daniel  Bourn's  carding-machine,  to  which  for  the  first  time 
was  applied  the  rotary  motion  the  same  year  that  Paul  patented  his 
invention,  was  made  by  John  Lees,  a  Manchester  (England)  Quaker 
in  1772.  To  this  the  following  year  James  Hargreaves  put  the  finish- 
ing touch  in  a  "doffing  knife"  that  was  patented  by  Arkwright,  Har- 
greaves receiving  neither  credit  nor  cash  for  his  valuable  addition  to 
carding.  As  late  as  1819  hand-carding  was  still  in  vogue.  Rees,  un- 
like most  writers,  gives  the  following  description  of  the  origin  of  the 
carding  process: — 

"The  preparing  of  wool  for  spinning  was  probably  first  effected  by 
the  fingers  and  afterwards  by  the  fuller's  teazle  or  thistle,  which,  with 
its  rough  and  hooked  points,  was  well  adapted  to  the  purpose,  and  has 
continued  in  use  to  the  present  day.  The  card  afterwards  used  was 
probably  a  substitute  for  the  teazle."  A  writer  of  the  present  century 
adds  that  this  original  hand-card  must  have  been  an  exact  counterpart 
of  the  hand-board  covered  with  teasels  which  is  still  (1908)  to  be  seen 
in  wool-raising  establishments  in  the  west  of  England. 

The  overseer  of  carding  and  his  assistants  must  be  men  of  long 
training  and  extreme  skill.  Not  only  is  carding  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant of  all  the  wool-manufacturing  processes,  but  mistakes  made 
here  can  never  be  corrected  and  only  perfect  carding  can  make  per- 
fect felts. 

HOW   THE    MULE    SPINS   THE    ROVING 

As  one  of  the  properties  of  paper-makers'  felts  is  to  filter  water,  the 
hardness  and  firmness  of  the  twist  variations  made  in  spinning  become 
most  important.  Before  reaching  the  spinning-rooms,  wool  has  been 
blended  to  a  certain  formula  and  carded  to  a  certain  thickness.  In 

53 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

the  spinning-rooms,  yarn  is  spun  to  a  certain  standard  by  a  process 
of  drawing,  twisting,  and  winding  the  yarn  on  the  bobbin  by  spinning. 
Just  as  wool  occupies  the  first  place  in  the  story  of  textiles,  both  in 
age  and  importance,  so  the  art  of  spinning  and  weaving  ranks  first 
among  the  arts  as  practised  by  the  ancients.  Just  as  sheep  have 
been  known  in  all  countries  from  remotest  times,  so  the  art  of  spinning 
and  weaving  has  been  found  among  almost  all  of  the  old  nations  of  the 
world.  In  Egypt  in  Joseph's  time  Pharaoh  was  arrayed  in  vestures 
of  fine  linen;  when  Moses  built  the  tabernacle  in  the  wilderness  "the 
women  that  were  wise-hearted  did  spin  with  their  hands,  and  brought 
that  which  they  had  spun,  both  of  blue,  and  of  purple,  and  of  scarlet, 
and  of  fine  linen";  and  in  Proverbs  the  virtuous  woman  is  described: 
"She  layeth  her  hands  to  the  spindle,  and  her  hands  hold  the  distaff." 


ANCIENT   METHOD    OF    SPINNING 

The  Greek  mythologists  portrayed  Minerva  and  Parcae  holding 
distaff  and  spindle,  while  Solomon  held  that  spinning  was  the  industry 
of  the  virtuous  woman.  The  ancient  distaff  was  about  three  feet  long 
and  made  of  a  reed  that  had  an  arrangement  at  the  top  to  hold  the 
ball.  The  women  held  the  distaff  under  the  left  arm  while  the  right 
hand  drew  the  fibres  from  the  ball  and  twisted  them  between  the 
thumb  and  forefinger  of  the  right  hand.  The  thread  thus  made  was 
wound  upon  the  spindle — made  of  a  reed  from  eight  to  twelve  inches 
high.  One  of  the  first  lessons  that  a  novice  should  learn  in  an  effort 
to  understand  the  processes  of  the  mule  is  that  of  hand-spinning,  for 
there  he  will  learn  that  the  mule  is  very  simple  in  its  construction, 
having  exactly  two  parts:  rollers  and  spindles.  The  spindles  have 
three  motions :  they  move  away  from  the  rollers  and  extend  the  roving 
to  a  greater  number  of  inches  than  its  original  length;  in  the  second 
place  they  put  a  twist  into  the  roving;  and  in  the  third,  they  wind  the 
yarn  onto  bobbins. 

UP-TO-DATE    SPINNING 

The  progress  in  the  spinning-rooms  at  the  Kenwood  plant  is  notable, 
as  all  of  the  machinery  formerly  used  has  been  discarded  and  the 
most  modern  machinery  installed.  The  new  machinery  is  much 
heavier  than  that  used  when  the  mills  were  first  built.  The  various 
spinning-rooms  at  the  plant  are  on  the  same  floor  as  the  carding-rooms, 

55 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

thus  facilitating  the  transference  of  the  roving-spools  to  the  spinning 
department. 

HUMAN    INGENUITY    OF    THE    MULE 

There  is  an  overseer  of  the  spinning-room,  whose  duties  are  to 
direct  the  work  of  the  machine.  A  guide  says  that  he  must  under- 
stand the  mechanism,  operation,  and  results  obtained.  He  must  have 
had  experience  as  a  spinnei  and  some  knowledge  as  to  the  repairing  of 
mules.  Working  with  him  is  a  mule-fixer,  whose  duties  are  to  watch 
the  mechanism  of  the  mule  spinning-machines  and  see  that  they  are 
kept  in  working  order.  The  guide  adds:  "The  spinner's  duties  are  to 
operate  the  woolen  mule,  which  receives  the  wool  on  roving  spools 
from  the  card-room,  and  deliver  it  on  the  bobbins  to  the  weave- 
room.  The  routine  duties  are,  setting  in  the  roving  at  the  back; 
placing  in  the  roving  ends;  piecing  in  ends  that  break  down;  regulat- 
ing the  winding  conditions  so  that  bobbins  will  be  properly  filled; 
doffing  bobbins  and  replacing  new  bobbins.  The  mule-spinning  as- 
sistant is  practically  an  apprentice;  he  brings  the  roving  from  the 
card-room;  assists  in  the  spinning  operation;  removes  the  remainder 
of  waste  from  the  roving  spools:  returns  spools  to  card-room,  and 
assists  in  doffing  and  replacing  bobbins." 

Take  a  single  machine  for  example.  The  spinner  places  the  roving- 
spool  at  the  back  of  the  mule  and  extends  the  roving  to  the  bobbins  or 
spindles — a  single  thread  to  each.  The  process  that  occurs  when  the 
mule  is  set  to  work  at  first  appears  cumbersome  and  then  marvellous. 
The  carriage  containing  the  spindles  moves  away  from  the  rollers  just 
far  enough  to  stretch  the  roving  to  a  desired  length.  When  the  rollers 
stop  and  the  carriage  has  extended  as  far  as  it  is  intended  to  go,  and 
the  proper  twist  has  been  given  to  the  roving,  the  carriage  returns  to 
the  rollers  and  the  process  is  again  repeated.  It  is  said  that  if  a  spin- 
ner know  something  about  a  spinning-wheel  it  is  of  no  small  value  in 
estimating  just  what  twists  to  use  on  the  mule,  much  depending  of 
course  on  the  quality  and  length  of  wool  fibre.  It  is  claimed  by  an 
eminent  authority  on  the  subject  that  there  are  few  pieces  of  mech- 
anism so  complicated  as  the  various  wheels,  clutches,  and  pulleys 
that  control  the  spinning-mule.  As  an  exception  to  the  insight  that 
some  are  given  in  its  operation,  the  story  is  told  of  the  Japanese  fore- 
man who,  having  never  operated  a  mule,  walked  a  two  days'  journey 
in  order  that  he  might  see  one  running.  Arriving  at  the  mill,  he 

57 


TWORELATED      INDUSTRIES 

watched  the  mule,  remaining  two  days,  and  then  went  home.  Two 
mules  from  England  were  awaiting  him  in  cases,  and  these  he  un- 
packed and  set  up  without  assistance.  In  two  short  days  he  had  been 
able  to  comprehend  every  motion  of  the  mule,  had  by  careful  obser- 
vation been  able  to  place  rollers,  wheels,  and  spindles,  and  had  ab- 
solutely grasped  the  relation  of  the  various  levers  and  pulleys  that 
controlled  the  headstock. 


HARGREAVES    AND    THE    SPIXXIXG-JEXXY 

Great  as  has  been  the  advance  since  spindle  and  distaff  gave  way  to 
the  spinning-wheel,  almost  as  great  was  the  accomplishment  when  a 
poor  weaver,  James  Hargreaves,  invented  the  spinning-jenny.  The 
idea  occurred  to  him  when,  upon  seeing  one  of  his  children  upset  a 
spinning-wheel,  he  noticed  that  the  wheel  continued  to  revolve,  and 
he  wondered  if  several  spindles  were  placed  together  if  it  would  not  be 
possible  to  spin  several  threads  at  once.  He  worked  out  his  idea  and 
patented  his  invention  in  1770,  naming  it  in  all  probability  for  the 
child  who  had  overturned  the  wheel.  From  eight  spindles  the  number 
was  increased  to  twenty,  thirty,  and  one  hundred  and  twenty.  It 
remained  for  Samuel  Crompton  to  combine  the  Hargreaves  spinning- 
jenny  with  an  Arkwright  invention  that  had  been  used  for  cotton. 
But  Crompton  was  poor  and  no  money  was  forthcoming  for  the 
development  of  his  ideas,  and  it  was  some  time  before  he  gained 
the  attention  of  the  public.  Numberless  improvements  followed,  but 
it  has  taken  more  than  a  century  to  usher  in  the  modern  spinning- 
machine.  And  long  ago  seem  the  days  that  the  poet  praised  the 
spinning-jenny  when  he  sang, — 

"But  patient  art; 

That  on  experience  works  from  hour  to  hour, 
Sagacious,  has  a  spiral  engine  form'd, 
Which  on  an  hundred  spoles,  an  hundred  threads, 
With  one  huge  wheel,  by  lapse  of  water,  twines, 
Few  hands  requiring;   easy  tended  work, 
That  copiously  supplies  the  greedy  loom." 

After  the  yarn  is  spun  at  the  Kenwood  Mills,  it  is  conveyed  by 
carriers  from  the  spinning-  to  the  weaving-rooms.  The  bobbins  are 
delivered  to  spoolers — a  number  of  girls  who  rapidly  transfer  the 
yarn  from  the  bobbins  to  warp  spools.  Cop-winders  also  transfer 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

yarn  from  bobbins  to  cops  preparatory  for  the  loom.  This  change 
is  made  by  machinery  that  works  very  much  like  a  bobbin  attach- 
ment on  a  sewing-machine,  the  empty  spools  being  replaced  and  the 
filled  ones  taken  out  by  the  girls  operating  the  machines. 


WEAVING,    FULLIXG,    AND    XAPPIXG 

Unlike  paper,  paper-makers'  felts  go  through  innumerable  processes 
before  the  finished  product  is  obtained.  For  instance,  those  familiar 
with  the  Fourdrinier  machine  watch  pulp  mixed  with  water  fed  into 
one  of  the  machines,  and  in  less  than  a  minute  that  same  moist  pulp 
has  been  converted  into  a  part  of  a  web  of  paper  that  is  rapidly 
wound  on  a  roll  often  a  mile  or  more  long.  In  making  paper-makers' 
felts,  the  number  and  variety  of  machines  that  do  their  part  toward 
producing  the  finished  product  is  constantly  a  source  of  interest  to 
those  unfamiliar  with  the  processes  of  the  manufacture.  Whereas  the 
Fourdrinier  machine  used  in  manufacturing  paper  is  the  result  of  one 
man's  thought  plus  the  improvement  devised  by  many  inventors,  the 


NO.  i   WEAVING  DEPARTMENT 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


LOOM  FOR  WEAVING  ENDLESS   FELTS 
Weaving  space  416  inches  in  which  seamless  felts  are  woven  66  feet  long 

carding-machines,  spinning-mules,  looms,  fulling-machines,  dryers, 
are  the  result  of  individual  efforts  on  the  part  of  innumerable  inventors 
to  perfect  the  art  of  woolen  manufacture. 

ANTIQUITY  OF  WEAVING 

Like  spinning,  evidences  of  weaving  have  been  found  in  the  earliest 
times,  and  it  is  believed  by  authorities  on  the  subject  that  the  art 
dates  back  not  only  to  the  Stone  Age,  but  to  the  days  when  prehistoric 
man  inhabited  the  earth.  When  history  began,  the  East  was  making 
fabric  of  flax,  cotton,  silk,  and  wool.  The  Bible  frequently  refers  to 
the  art;  the  Chinese  are  said  to  have  woven  silk  as  early  as  2640  B.C., 
while  the  Egyptians  by  way  of  signifying  that  Isis  was  the  goddess  of 
weaving  and  its  inventor  placed  in  her  hands  a  shuttle.  From  the 
East  the  art  of  weaving  spread  West,  where  it  was  gradually  improved, 
and  where  in  1785-86  Edmund  Cartwright  invented  the  power  loom. 
The  improvements  on  his  invention  both  in  England  and  America 
followed  each  other  in  rapid  succession. 

60 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

At  the  Kenwood  plant  the  most  intricate  modern  machinery  has 
been  installed  in  the  weave-rooms.  Here  are  looms  that  weave  the  end- 
less felts,  the  exclusive  use  of  which  F.  C.  Huyck  and  Sons  secured  for 
the  United  States.  Some  years  ago  when  he  was  in  England  he  wrote 
one  of  his  sons,  "I  have  heard  of  a  loom  that  weaves  endless  felts." 
The  next  letter  contained  this  line,  "I  am  starting  to-morrow  to  see 
the  looms  I  mentioned."  And  the  third  letter  announced,  "I  have 
ordered  three  of  these  looms." 

Other  looms  in  the  weave-rooms  produce  felts  that  are  afterward 
joined  or  made  endless  by  hand.  "Time  flies  like  a  weaver's  shuttle" 
is  a  much  quoted  axiom,  and  the  flight  of  the  weaver's  shuttle  as 
exhibited  on  these  looms  is  a  rapid,  human  motion.  Let  it  be  under- 
stood first  of  all  that  weaving  means  arranging  yarn  so  as  to  form  a 
firm  piece  of  cloth.  This  is  done  by  placing  the  warp  yarn  in  such 
a  way  as  to  form  a  close  network  of  threads.  The  loom  itself  is  a 
massive  frame  on  which  is  placed  a  beam  from  which  the  warp  yarn 
passes  through  the  harness  and  reed  to  the  front  of  the  loom,  while  the 
shuttle  darts  across,  weaving  in  the  filling  yarn,  thus  forming  the 
fabric. 

Of  all  the  processes  through  which  the  Kenwood  paper-makers' 
felts  pass,  weaving  is  the  most  interesting.  In  some  of  the  weave- 
rooms  are  seamless  felts  woven  on  immense  looms  that  have  a  reed 
space  or  width  of  over  four  hundred  inches;  in  others,  felts  are  being 
woven  to  a  length  of  nearly  two  hundred  feet;  in  fact,  there  are  being 
woven  felts  of  a  width  and  length  to  meet  the  needs  of  any  paper-mill. 
The  one  impression  that  is  left  on  the  mind  is  that  great  lengths  of 
paper-makers'  felts  are  being  swiftly  turned  out  by  the  looms  and  that 
the  busy,  swiftly  flying  shuttles  apparently  do  most  of  the  work.  An 
overseer  of  weaving  watches  not  only  the  quality  of  the  paper-makers' 
felts  and  jackets  as  they  are  turned  off,  but  he  carefully  examines  the 
yarn  that  has  been  previously  delivered  from  the  spinning-room.  The 
warpers,  drawers-in,  and  weavers  are  assisted  by  loom-fixers,  who 
place  warps  in  the  looms  and  prepare  them  for  weaving.  The  loom- 
fixers  also  mend  breaks  that  occur  in  the  looms  and  remove  the  empty 
beams  when  the  last  felt  is  woven.  The  cloth-measurers  measure  the 
felts  as  they  come  from  the  looms,  cut  them  off  into  required  lengths, 
and  transfer  them  to  the  burling-room,  where  any  mistake  or  flaw 
in  weaving  is  very  carefully  corrected. 


61 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

BURLING  AND  JOINING 

The  burling-rooms  are  very  light,  and  the  felts  are  at  first  examined 
by  a  staff  of  girls  working  over  tables.  Here,  if  knots  occur  in  the 
felts,  they  are  untied  and  imperfections  of  weaving  are  corrected. 
That  the  inspection  may  be  thorough,  the  final  care  is  given  by  girls, 
working  in  pairs,  who  stand  between  the  felts  which  have  been  placed 
over  a  frame  or  perch.  Facing  the  light,  with  the  felt  between  the 
workers  and  the  light,  any  defects  that  are  finally  discovered  are 
remedied.  After  this  second  inspection  the  felts  that  have  not  been 
woven  seamless  are  passed  to  the  joining-room,  where  a  staff  of  women 
perform  the  dexterous  process  of  joining.  The  felts  are  placed  end 
to  end  across  long  tables  and  then  drawn  together,  each  opposite  thread 
exactly  matching.  At  the  end  of  each  felt  is  a  fringe  of  warp.  The 
threads  of  this  fringe  are  tied  in  a  knot  and  then  the  joiner  pulls  the 
thread  farther  into  the  warp  on  either  side  until  a  seamless  felt  is 
entirely  woven  by  hand.  This  is  the  process  that  was  performed  a 
half-century  ago  by  the  women  living  round  about  Rensselaerville. 

WASHING  AND  FULLING  THE   FELTS 

In  order  to  remove  the  oil  and  dirt  that  have  accumulated  during  the 
processes  of  carding,  spinning,  and  weaving,  the  felts  are  taken  from  the 
joining-room  and  washed  in  tubs,  over  which  they  are  suspended  on 
rollers  that  hold  them  while  they  are  passed  through  the  tubs  of  water. 

Because  the  felts  when  they  come  from  the  loom  must  be  shrunk  to 
a  required  exact  size  and  have  not  been  really  felted,  they  must  be  put 
through  the  felting  process  before  they  are  suited  for  the  use  they  are 
to  fill  in  paper-mills.  This  process  is  termed  "fulling,"  and  the 
purpose  of  it  is  to  shrink  and  thicken  the  fabric  and  to  prepare  it  for 
the  nap  that  must  be  put  on  before  it  can  be  used  to  absorb  water. 
As  one  goes  into  the  large  fulling-rooms  at  the  Kenwood  plant,  in  con- 
trast there  arises  a  picture  of  the  old  way  in  which  woolen  fabrics 
were  prepared  for  use.  Before  the  advent  of  the  fulling-mill  or  fulling- 
machinery  the  cloth  was  beaten  with  sticks,  or  subjected  to  an  entirely 
different  process  if  the  young  men  and  women  of  the  neighborhood 
wanted  a  party.  Some  one  in  these  early  days  gave  the  following 
account  of  one  of  these  affairs:  "When  the  cloth  of  the  season  was 
woven,  the  young  people  were  invited  to  the  house,  the  kitchen  floor 
was  cleared  for  action,  and  in  the  middle  were  placed  stout  split 
bottom  chairs  in  a  circle  connected  by  a  cord  to  prevent  coil.  On  these 

63 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

the  young  men  sat  with  shoes  and  stockings  off  and  trousers  rolled 
to  the  knee.  In  the  centre  were  placed  the  cloths  wetted  with  warm 
soap  and  suds  and  then  kicking  commenced  by  measure  steps,  driving 
the  bundles  of  goods  round  and  round  the  circle,  until  they  were 
shrunk  to  the  desired  size.  Then  the  girls,  arms  bare  to  the  elbows, 
rinsed  and  wrung  out  the  flannels  and  hung  them  on  the  fence  to  dry." 
Fulling  is  a  very  old  operation,  and  even  to-day  there  is  more  or  less 
mystery  about  why  and  how  wool  fibres  cling  together,  making  a 
close,  compact  fabric.  As  early  as  1655  John  Pierpont  built  a  fulling- 
mill  in  Roxbury,  Massachusetts,  and  others  that  followed  in  the  same 
State  were  one  at  Watertown  in  1662,  another  at  Andover  in  1673,  one 
at  Ipswich  in  1675,  and  one  at  Barnstable  in  1687. 

Fulling  or  felting,  the  process  from  which  paper-makers'  felts  receive 
their  name,  is  the  method  of  utilizing  that  peculiar  property  of  the 
woolen  fibre,  before  mentioned,  through  which  one  fibre  interlocks 
with  another  and  in  doing  so  shrinks  in  length  until  the  full  width  of 
the  piece  of  cloth  becomes  very  much  less  than  its  woven  width.  The 
three  agencies  through  which  this  process  most  readily  takes  place  are 
heat,  friction,  and  moisture;  and  it  is  in  providing  more  efficient  means 
of  applying  these  agencies  that  the  development  of  fulling-machinery 
has  been  made  from  olden  times,  when  the  fulling  process  occurred 
by  the  stamping  of  the  piece  of  cloth  with  the  feet,  through  the  time 
when  fulling-mills  consisted  of  large  hammers  suspended  from  a  tub 
and  alternately  dropped  on  the  fabric,  to  the  time  when  the  modern 
fulling-mill  receives  the  woolen  goods  in  a  long  string  and  by  con- 
tinuous motion  passes  it  while  in  a  moist  condition  through  heavy 
rollers.  The  results  desired  have  always  been  the  same;  namely,  a 
thickening  and  strengthening  of  the  fabric,  the  increasing  of  its  wear- 
ing quality,  and  of  its  resistance  to  cold.  In  paper-makers'  felts,  the 
desired  object  is  to  gain  in  strength  as  much  as  possible  without  mak- 
ing the  fabric  so  close  that  water  will  not  pass  readily  through  it. 
The  overseer  of  fulling  and  his  assistants  must  have  a  knowledge  that 
can  only  be  gained  through  long  experience  in  the  particular  fabrics 
that  they  are  working  on. 

In  the  manufacture  of  paper-makers'  felts,  when  it  is  necessary  to 
bring  a  single  felt  down  to  the  exact  size  of  inches  in  width  and  of 
feet  in  length,  when  this  size  may  be,  as  it  has  been  stated,  as  long  as 
one  hundred  and  eighty  feet  or  as  wide  as  two  hundred  and  fifty  inches, 
it  is  easy  to  realize  the  skill  that  must  be  exercised  to  bring  the  proper 
results.  There  must  be  no  shrinking  after  the  felt  is  finished,  for  on 

66 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


NAPPING-  OR  RAISING-MACHINE 

the  paper-machine  it  must  maintain  its  width  and  length  throughout 
its  use,  nor  can  there  be  any  stretching,  which  would  be  just  as  detri- 
mental to  its  service  on  the  paper-machine;  at  least,  both  shrinking 
and  stretching  must  be  confined  within  small  and  known  limits.  For 
these  reasons,  the  importance  not  only  of  skill  and  experience  on  the 
part  of  the  workmen  but  of  proper  designing  of  machinery  is  evident. 
Most  of  the  fulling-mills  in  the  Kenwood  Mills  are  either  manufac- 
tured in  the  plant's  own  engineering  department  or  made  after  its  own 
designs.  Here  you  will  find  a  mill  small  enough  to  full  the  smallest- 
size  felt  properly  and  others  large  enough  to  receive  a  single  piece 
weighing  from  one  to  two  thousand  pounds. 

PUTTING    ON   THE   NAP 

From  the  fulling-room  the  felts  are  taken  to  the  gigging-  or  napping- 
room,  where  on  machines  having  great  rollers  the  felts  receive  a  nap 
from  small  spindles  covered  with  teasels.  Teasels  are  the  seed-pods 

6? 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


SMALL  DRYER 

2  feet  diameter,  145  inches  wide.     Weight  1,800  pounds.     Drying  felt  28  feet 
long  by  5 1  inches  wide 


of  a  plant  and  have  sharp  springy  points  which  have  never  been  imi- 
tated successfully.  These  teasels  when  set  revolve  on  little  spindles 
about  the  roller  against  which  the  felt  is  passed  and  in  this  way  the 
nap  is  put  on,  a  man  having  wide  experience  in  napping  being  in 
charge  of  the  department.  "He  must  know,"  says  the  guide,  "the 
mechanism  of  the  machine;  he  must  know  the  proper  sharpness  at 
which  to  keep  the  teasels,  and  must  have  an  exact  knowledge  of  the 
finish  that  is  required.  He  must  be  able  to  produce  a  maximum  nap 
without  injury  to  the  fabric." 


DRYING 

After  receiving  the  nap,  the  felts  are  ready  for  drying.  This  process 
is  performed  by  men,  working  in  pairs,  who  adjust  the  felts  to  the 
dryers — large  steam-heated  rolls — and  who,  after  stretching  the  felts  on 
frames  and  measuring  them  for  a  required  width  and  length,  remove 

68 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


LARGE  DRYER 

5  feet  diameter,  264  inches  wide.     Weight  18,000  pounds.     Drying  felt 
56  feet  long  by  212  inches  wide 


them  when  completely  dry.  In  this  room  is  a  dryer  with  a  cylinder 
twenty-two  feet  long,  five  feet  in  diameter,  weighing  nine  tons — the 
largest  dryer  ever  made.  After  the  felts  are  dry,  inspectors,  working 
in  pairs,  place  them  on  frames  facing  the  light  and  there  take  out  any 
foreign  matter,  either  vegetable  or  wool,  that  they  find.  This  is  the 
last  of  the  many  inspections,  and  it  is  attended  with  the  care  that  all 
previous  inspections  have  had.  The  next  step  is  the  removal  of  the 
felts  to  the  shipping-room. 


THE  SHIPPING-ROOM 

The  shipping-room  at  the  Kenwood  plant  is  as  cosmopolitan  as  the 
wool-room,  for  in  this  room  are  bales  and  boxes  marked  with  names 
that  represent  the  entire  paper-making  world.  A  notable  feature  of 
this  room  is  the  neatness  and  order  of  arrangement  and  packing.  It 
is  supplied  from  the  packing-room,  where,  on  well-arranged  shelves, 

69 


PILE  OF  WOOLEN  DRYER  FELTS,  EACH  WEIGHING  OVER  1,000  POUNDS 


MACHINE  ROOM 

Fabrica  de  Papel  de  Maracay  of  Venezuela 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

are  thousands  of  felts  ready  for  consumers  that  require  a  certain  size. 
The  width  ranges  from  the  little  forty-inch-wide  felts  still  in  use  for 
some  purposes  to  the  Fourdrinier  felts  that  already  measure  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty-four  inches  and  will  soon  be  two  hundred  and  fifty 
inches  wide  when  machines  now  being  built  are  completed.  Reliability 
of  product,  excellent  shipping  facilities,  and  efficient  foreign  agents  have 
placed  the  felts  among  the  foremost  products  of  their  kind.  The  situa- 
tion of  the  plant  is  advantageous;  having  its  own  sidetracks,  and  the 
fact  of  its  nearness  to  the  Hudson  River  where  steamers  run  daily  to 
New  York,  has  aided  foreign  shipments.  The  felts  may  be  shipped  on 
these  steamers  at  night  and  the  following  morning  transferred  to  an 
ocean  liner,  or  they  can  be  sent  forward  to  any  Pacific  port  and  thence 
shipped  to  Japan,  China,  or  Australia.  Japan  erected  the  first  paper- 
machine  in  1874,  and  since  then  the  industry  has  grown  enormously, 
and  shipments  of  Kenwood  felts  to  that  country  have  increased  cor- 
respondingly. In  every  paper-making  State  of  the  United  States — 
from  New  England,  through  the  Central  States,  to  the  Pacific  Coast, 
where  the  paper-making  industry  has  made  marked  progress — the 
Kenwood  felts  are  used.  In  the  South,  where  recently  the  paper- 
making  industry  has  progressed  rapidly  owing  to  the  use  of  long-leaved 
pine  for  pulp,  shipments  are  constantly  increasing.  Among  the  largest 
consumers  of  the  felts  are  Australia,  Argentine,  England,  Finland, 
Holland,  Japan,  Norway,  and  Sweden. 

ENGINEERING  DEPARTMENT 

One  usually  thinks  of  an  engineering  department  of  a  plant  as  solely 
concerned  with  supplying  power,  heat,  and  light  and  making  repairs 
to  machinery.  This  is  not  the  case  in  the  engineering  department 
of  the  Kenwood  Mills.  Many  special  machines  are  designed  and 
built  here,  many  inventions  perfected,  and  much  that  plays  a  vital  part 
in  the  efficient  development  of  the  plant  has  its  origin  in  this  depart- 
ment, where  skilled  mechanics  and  draftsmen  work  under  the  instruc- 
tion of  an  able  supervising  engineer. 

ACCOUNTING  DEPARTMENT 

The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  accounting  department.  It  is  not 
simply  a  place  where  routine  work  is  done.  Efficient  purchasing 
methods,  a  cost-accounting  system  which  is  accurate  and  thorough, 

73 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

and  the  latest  methods  of  general  accounting,  carefully  conducted  cor- 
respondence, and  complete  and  accurate  records  help  materially  in 
giving  efficient  service  to  the  users  of  Kenwood  felts. 

The  Kenwood  Plant  having  drawn  its  raw  materials  from  the  whole 
world,  returns  to  the  world  its  finished  product.  New  conditions  are 
constantly  arising  and  being  met. 

Probably  it  will  be  some  years  before  the  wood  pulp  of  the  United 
States  and  Canada  is  exhausted.  Experiments,  however,  are  already 
being  made  all  over  the  world  in  order  to  provide  substitutes  for  wood 
pulp.  Most  particularly  in  the  United  States  and  her  possessions  atten- 
tion is  being  turned  to  the  South,  Hawaii,  and  Porto  Rico,  which  are 
expected  to  be  the  producers  of  the  world's  supply  of  pulp  in  future 
years.  The  waste  materials  of  sugar-cane — called  in  Cuba  and  Porto 
Rico,  megasse,  and  in  Hawaii,  begasse — are  being  experimented  on, 
also  bamboo,  as  a  raw  material  for  paper  pulp.  A  mill  in  Hawaii 
erected  a  year  ago  has  made  considerable  progress  in  utilizing  begasse 
and  in  manufacturing  a  row  mulching  which  is  somewhat  similar  to  a 
roofing  and  is  used  to  increase  the  growth  of  sugar-cane  and  prevent 
growth  of  weeds.  This  waste,  heretofore  being  exceedingly  cheap,  has 
been  used  by  the  sugar-cane  mills  for  fuel.  Sugar-cane  requires  a 
great  deal  of  fertilizer,  and  the  fact  that  the  row  mulching  can  be  man- 
ufactured from  waste,  cut  into  thirty-six-inch  rolls  and  carried  on 
donkeys  to  the  fields,  where  it  is  easily  unrolled  and  spread  on  the 
sugar-cane  sprouts  which  penetrate  the  paper,  is  of  especial  advantage 
to  the  producer,  especially  as  the  row  mulching  destroys  the  weeds, 
which  cannot  penetrate  it.  This  paper  also  prevents  the  fertilizer  in  the 
ground  from  being  washed  away  during  the  heavy  rainfall.  By  the 
use  of  this,  all  cultivation  is  done  away.  Measurements  have  shown 
that  the  height  of  the  sugar-cane  in  a  given  time  greatly  exceeds  the 
height  of  the  stalks  grown  where  the  paper  has  not  been  used,  and 
the  yield  of  the  sugar-cane  has  been  increased. 


THE    SOUTHERN    STATES    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
A  SOURCE  OF   SUPPLY 

Another  source  of  the  supply  for  wood  pulp  will  probably  be  the 
South  where  long-leaf  pine  grows  in  such  quantities.  It  has  been 
shown  that  for  every  million  feet  of  lumber  cut,  there  are  two  million 
feet  of  waste.  From  this  waste,  after  turpentine  and  resin  have  been 

75 


•*  ---  -->-  -^  //  \    ' 

.^<^\\ ; 


,-•, 


\  \":^V\X 

^    \\  ,\     .         .  ^,       -  "-1 


TWO      RELATED      INDUSTRIES 

extracted,  wood  pulp  can  be  made.  At  present  excellent  kraft-  and 
wrapping-papers  have  been  produced,  and  experiments  show  that  from 
this  waste  also  high-grade  book-papers  and  stationery  can  be  made. 
In  spite  of  the  sanguine  expectations  of  Hawaii,  Porto  Rico,  Cuba,  and 
the  Southern  States  in  meeting  the  pulp  supply  of  the  future,  there  are 
those  who  look  to  Sweden  and  Australia  to  yield  vast  quantities  of 
wood  pulp  for  the  paper  trade  of  the  next  threescore  years. 

What  the  coming  century  holds,  it  is  safe  to  say,  has  been  but 
partially  foreseen.  Measured  by  the  expansion  of  the  past  fifty  years 
the  future  will  be  one  of  remarkable  development  both  in  the  utilization 
of  raw  material  and  in  the  perfection  of  machinery  to  meet  new  condi- 
tions. The  manufacture  of  paper-makers'  felts  for  the  last  fifty  years 
has  been  advanced  as  modern  paper  needs  were  created.  The  Ken- 
wood plant  during  this  half-century  has  imported  wool  from  every 
sheep-raising  country  in  the  world,  and  has  converted  this  commodity 
into  paper-makers'  felts  that  have  been  sent  to  every  country 
where  paper  is  made.  Just  as  in  the  past,  the  same  high  standard 
of  product  will  be  maintained  for  the  remainder  of  the  century — the 
half-milestone  which  this  brochure  commemorates. 


A  BURR  FOUND  IN 
SOUTH  AMERICAN 
WOOL 


TWO     RELATED      INDUSTRIES 


AUTHORITIES 

The  writer  desires  to  acknowledge  indebtedness  to  Mr.  W.  W. 
Nearing  of  the  Pejepscot  Paper  Company,  Brunswick,  Maine;  to  the 
S.  D.  Warren  Company,  Cumberland  Mills,  Maine;  and  to  Mr. 
Douglas  E.  Scott,  superintendent  of  Semi-Commercial  pulp  mill  of 
the  United  Fruit  Company,  Boston,  Mass.;  also  for  photographs,  to 
Ontario  Paper  Co.,  Thorold,  Ont.,  Canada;  A.  P.  W.  Paper  Co., 
Albany,  N.Y.;  The  Thames  River  Specialties  Co.,  Uncasville,  Conn.; 
Robert  P.  Richmond,  Valatie,  N.Y.;  Imperial  Govt.  Paper  Mill, 
Japan;  Oji  Paper  Co.,  Japan. 

The  following  authorities  also  have  been  consulted: — 
A  History  of  Paper-Manufacturing  in  the  United  States ,  1690—1916, 
by  Lyman  Horace  Weeks;  The  Story  of  Paper-Making,  an  Account 
of  Paper-Making  from  its  Earliest  Known  Record  Down  to  the 
Present  Time,  published  by  the  J.  W.  Butler  Paper  Company  of 
Chicago;  Paper,  its  History,  Sources  and  Manufacture,  by  H.  A. 
Maddox,  London;  Chronology  of  the  Origin  and  Progress  of  Paper  and 
Paper-Making,  by  Joel  Munsell;  Industry  and  Trade,  Historical  and 
Descriptive  Account  of  their  Development  in  the  United  States,  by 
Avard  Langley  Bishop  and  Albert  Galloway  Keller;  Bishop's  History 
of  Manufacturers;  W.  E.  Weeden's  Industrial  Development  of  New 
England;  History  of  Papermaking  in  Maine,  and  the  Future  of  the 
Industry,  contributed  to  the  Twentieth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau 
of  Industrial  and  Labor  Statistics  for  the  State  of  Maine  by  Hugh  J. 
Chisholm,  president  of  the  International  Paper  Company  (1906); 
Paper;  and  The  Paper  Trade  Journal;  besides  many  monographs  and 
special  articles. 


Al  VJ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


DEC  2 


VT 

OV3    1954  LU 


RECO 


9 


LD  21-100m-ll,'49(B7146sl6)476 


